Hunters: Bad Moon Rising
by BlazeorFade
Summary: Fifth in the Hunters Series. What happens when the hunters end up investigating a job in a small town Jack lived for a few months? Bad memories, old faces and a painful revelation about her past.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Hunters: Bad Moon Rising**

**Author: BlazeorFade**

**Rating: M**

**Summary: What happens when the hunters end up investigating a job in a small town Jack lived for a few months? Bad memories, old faces and a painful revelation about her past. **

**PROLOGUE**

Jack spit the mouthful of blood and one of her molars on the ground to her side. She could barely keep her eyes open, she'd lost the energy to really struggle against the ropes binding her arms to the chair behind her back and her feet to the legs of it. She gasped for breath and looked her captor in the eye.

"I don't care what you do to me." She wheezed through the bloody mess of her face. One of her eyes was starting to swell shut and she was pretty sure one of her ribs was broken among other things.

"I've been tortured before and by people a lot more creative than you." She snarked defiantly. He through back his head and laughed cruelly then backhanded her hard. He grabbed her throbbing cheek in his hand and brought his face close to hers stilling her as she tried to pull away from the close contact.

"You see that's all right. Because I know what scares you." He whispered against her cheek. "I know how to make you scream."

Jack stilled and he chuckled against her ear, his breath ghosting over her skin making it crawl with revulsion. He took out a length of black material and tied it hard around Jack's eyes, effectively blind folding her. She willed herself to stay calm, before she could see what he was going to do to her. She saw which blades he planned on cutting her with, where he would slide his hands before tearing at soft skin.

"I think I'll leave you here for a bit. Go and visit your friends." He said from behind in her ear. Jack started to struggle anew.

"Don't you touch them! I'll kill you if you hurt them you son of a bitch!" Jack roared. She felt herself being dragged backwards in the chair. Then she was thrown backwards her chair hitting a wall so hard her remaining teeth shook. She got a stifled feeling, heard a door close near her and then another door further away. She rocked back and forth to get a feel for where she was. Her shoulders bumped walls only an inch from either side of her and her panic level rose.

Alone in the dark, unable to see, in a tiny enclosed space. She started to hyperventilate.

We shouldn't have split up, she thought trying to grip on anything to keep her from thinking about where she was. We should have stayed close.

**AN: This Prologue takes place a week after the start of the hunt. Also this story is rated M for torture, violence and sexual themes. Its going to be pretty dark. You've been warned. I'll have the first chapter up tonight probably… Till then happy reading.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own Jack, not Supernatural or Sam and Dean.**

**One week ago**

_Jack fidgeted at her desk, watching the clock. Three minutes. Three minutes and school would be out. She took out a piece of paper and started doodling on it till her impatience got the better of her and she looked up at the clock again. Two minutes. The teacher was droning on about that weekends homework assignment. As if the classroom full of ten year olds were actually listening to him. The bell rang and Jack shot out of her seat, the first one out the door._

_She left the elementary school and took her time walking home. Her uncle didn't allow her to take the school bus, he didn't like the thought of her in an enclosed space without easy exits and full of bystanders. Jack turned the corner to the slightly rough neighborhood her apartment was in, she adjusted her backpack so the zipper holding her Derringer was within easy access. The supernatural weren't things she had to watch out for._

_Nothing could kill Jack's good mood though and she hurried up the tenement's stairs to get to their fifth floor lock up. At exactly 3:30 that afternoon Jack had been at her new school for three weeks. Three weeks straight without a single absence, a new record. Jack smiled at the unexpected feeling of pride that left her with._

_Jack unlocked the door to the apartment, smelled the odor of booze and her smile faltered. It looked like her streak was over. She stepped over the salt lines and did up the line of locks on the front door. The small living room was dark, she saw two bottles of alcohol on the table and Chris's form stretched out on the couch, one arm slung over his eyes and the other holding onto a third bottle. Another nightmare. A bad one by the looks of things. Jack sighed. She put her backpack on the kitchen table, slipped the knife from the sheath under her skirt and got a warm, damp washcloth._

_She slinked silently back into the living room, took a seat on the edge of the table gently but firmly taking the half empty bottle from Chris's hand. He offered little resistance. _

_"Jack?" He slurred without removing his arm from his eyes._

_"Yeah." Jack said. She placed the bottle on the table, reached up and put her hands on his arm, pulling it down so she could place the cloth over his eyes and forehead uninhibited._

_"Bad dreams?" Jack whispered. Chris mumbled an affirmative. She pressed the sides of his temples to ease the pain there._

_"Maybe…isagoohing…." Chris mumbled. Jack stopped and leaned in closer to hear._

_"What?" She asked._

_"Maybe s'good thing your daddy ain't around." Chris said again. Jack frowned, she didn't get it, she wasn't sure she wanted to._

_"He wouldn't have been able to handle it. Your fire." Chris was slurring his words. Jack could tell he was to far gone to know what he was saying but it was still a punch in the gut to hear him say that._

_Chris started snoring, pulling her out of her thoughts. Jack swallowed and got off the table. She set herself to the task of cleaning things up; first she disposed of the empty bottles, set the half empty one in the fridge and then she did the dishes and cleaned whatever else needed it. When she was finished and covered in a sufficient coating of grime she retreated to the bathroom._

_Jack stared at herself in the mirror and thought of her dead parents. She held out her hand and bit her lip pushing out with her mind a little to make a tiny spark dance across her finger tips before it went out. Then she put her fist through the mirror. The blood was a shock, the pain coming seconds later. She bit her lip and pulled out the little first aid kit from under the sink. _

_The image changed and Jack was looking at herself at fifteen, breathing hard, wiping her mouth from emptying her stomach in a toilet that didn't even flush. She looked down at her fist and slammed it into the dingy, rusty mirror._

Jack jerked awake, unsure of her surroundings at first. Then Sam looked back at her from the driver's seat and she remembered. She was with Sam and Dean, she'd fallen asleep in the back seat of the Impala.

"You alright?" Sam asked.

"Weird dreams." Jack mumbled sitting up and cracking her neck.

"What was I wearing?" Dean asked quoting her from awhile back. She smiled and let out a yawn.

"Seriously. Are you okay?" Dean asked turning around to look at her.

"I'm cool." Jack said she leaned forward to rest her chin on the seat.

"How long was I out?" She asked them.

"About four hours. We're stopping for lunch soon." Sam said.

"Most sleep I've gotten all week." Jack stretched.

"Tucson?" Dean asked looking back at her. She nodded. They were both still feeling the effects of the last job. Jack kept having flashbacks and Dean kept getting fuzzy images in his head that weren't his memories.

"I think we need to call Dr. Phil." Jack said lightly.

"I think that's what we keep Sammy around for." Dean said. Sam had been trying to get a serious answer from either of them about what they were feeling since then. It was a losing battle.

"I'd pay for therapy myself if you guys would go." Sam said.

"Only if you some with us Sammy." Jack said.

"What do I need it for?" Sam snorted. "You guys are the crazy ones.

"Family therapy, we'll say you're traumatized by me and Jack's untimely divorce." Dean said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"I didn't know you were married." Sam said raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not surprised you were so drunk. You were a beautiful maid of honor by the way." Jack said. "The sister I never had."

"I can't even be the imaginary best man?" Sam said in faux outrage.

"You look good in peach." Dean said placating him.

"Who caught the bouquet?" Sam asked fighting not to laugh.

"Dad." Dean said and Sam couldn't hold it back any longer.

"He'll make a gorgeous bride." Jack said giggling. "And Sam will get to wear his bridesmaid dress again."

"There's a place up ahead we can eat and gas up." Sam said between laughs as he spotted a rest stop. He really hoped his dad didn't call them for the next couple of days. He wouldn't be able to take anything he said seriously with the image of John Winchester in a pretty white dress. Sam was even able to overlook t hat the two jokers had just successfully avoided talking about their issues yet again.

They entered the small roadside diner and ordered after gassing up the car. Half way through his meal Sam elbowed Dean subtly and jerked his chin towards Jack, who was looking out the window instead of at her meal. Dean frowned and looked at her untouched food. Usually she'd be scrounging for seconds and stealing food from Sam and Dean's plates by then.

"Jack." Dean said whistling to get her attention. He nodded at her plate. "Foods getting cold."

"Oh I'm not hungry right now." Jack said absently. Sam's eyes widened a fraction and he reached out and touched her forehead.

"What are you-"

"No fever." Sam frowned at Dean. Dean put his fork down and leaned forward so no one else would hear him.

"Christo." He whispered. Jack blinked at him and cuffed him upside his head.

"Did you just Christo me?" She asked in astonishment. He gave a boyish grin.

"C'mon you gotta admit you passing up food is like a sign of the apocalypse." Sam pointed out. Jack glared at him then nodded grudgingly. She picked up a French fry and tried to eat it but her stomach turned and she had to put it back down.

"Restroom." She mumbled pushing her plate away and getting up from the booth.

"I was just joking." Sam said looking genuinely contrite.

"She knows Sam." Dean said cringing. They'd been taking it easier the past couple of weeks. Taking easy gigs, a couple of hauntings outside Utah, a love spell gone awry in Kentucky. Nothing too big.

John had called two days ago asking why they were dragging ass, making Dean start to seriously wonder if his dad had the Impala bugged. How the hell did he always know this stuff? Dean had promised they'd get serious, then he set out to finding them a new gig. Now he wasn't so sure. The one he found needed their attention but things were still weird or weirder than usual. He pulled the paper out and reread the article he'd circled in red.

"Do we have a new job yet?" Jack asked when she got back to the table.

"Maybe." Dean said. "Bodies being found dismembered."

"Sounds like a garden variety whack job." Sam said taking the paper from Dean.

"I checked the dates and there's a pattern going back the last two or three months." Dean said taking a sip from his coffee.

"What kind of pattern? And how long have you been sitting on this if you had time to do research without us knowing?" Sam asked.

"A couple of days and I haven't been sitting on it I was just checking to make sure it was our thing before saying anything." Dean replied.

"Pattern?" Jack asked.

"Oh yeah, lunar cycles." Dean said. "All the murders happened around the full moon."

"Werewolf?" Jack asked.

"Too clean.." Dean answered.

"Well lets see what's eating small town America this week." Jack said.

Dean thought about telling them that they could turn it over to someone else, see if Bobby or someone else their father knew was interested. Then he thought of what his father would say and that was enough to make him deicide against it. Better an angry something wicked than any angry John Winchester who's orders had just been disobeyed.

"We'll start that way soon." Dean said taking the newspaper back from Sam and folding it up again.

"Where's our job taking us today?" Jack asked on their way out the door.

"Vinita, Oklahoma." Dean answered. Jack's step faltered before she could catch herself.

"You alright?" Sam asked helping her steady herself. She opened her mouth and closed it again.

"I'm fine." She said.

"You know the place? Vinita?" Dean asked her.

"I've been all across the country." Jack shrugged without really answering him.

"So that's a yes?" Sam asked.

"Lets go, people dieing remember." Jack said brushing past him to claim shotgun seat.

"More personal shit just what we need now?" Dean scowled.

"Maybe she knows someone there." Sam suggested. He was intrigued. Jack's history was an enigma. She traded stories occasionally but for the most part she stuck to funny stories about as she called it her "misspent youth".

"If you guys don't come on I'll hot wire the car and leave your asses." Jack called from the car.

"Like hell you will. You cut any wires in my baby and I'll feed you to a werewolf." Dean threatened walking swiftly to his car.

Sam got into the backseat thinking about their new job. He'd never heard of Vinita, Oklahoma meaning it was probably small. If it was small enough it wouldn't be that hard to trace Jack's footprints in the town if she left any. What he didn't know was that Jack was thinking the same exact thing.

Vinita was a small town, small enough that it wouldn't take long to run into people who would recognize her. Well, she thought to herself, you'll just have to make sure to run damage control and keep them away from certain parts, now won't you?

Duh, she told herself. She could do this. She could keep them away from Brian.

**TBC……………**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I just ate. Does that count for anything? No? Okay then on with the story.**

They made it to Vinita late the next afternoon after taking turns driving through the night. Jack grew conspicuously quiet the closer they got.

Dean pulled to a stop at a red light as they entered the town. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the soccer mom in the minivan next to them glance at them and push the button for the automatic locks.

"I love it when they do that." He snickered.

"You know maybe the locals would be more inclined to talk to us if we didn't scare them." Sam pointed out.

"Says you." Dean hmphed.

"We still look like we've been in a bar fight, they'd be scared of us if we drove in here in a Volvo." Jack said slouching down further in her seat.

"This is nice place." Sam said changing the subject looking out the window at the greenery that bordered the town, thick forestry gave it an almost isolated feel. Sam couldn't picture Jack in a place like this.

"Too green." Jack said wrinkling her nose.

Dean was raising an eyebrow at Sam. He just shrugged.

"Whatever."

Jack almost told Dean to keep going when he stopped in front the first motel they came to. She had to bite her lip not to. What were the odds the owners would remember her? She wondered to herself. Just in case though when she saw the owner walk around the corner just outside, she popped her hood up discreetly and stayed in the car while Sam and Dean ran in to get two rooms.

Too bad that the owner caught a look at her face as he was passing by.

"Can I help you sirs?" The older man asked them while trying to place the face he'd just caught a glimpse of.

"We need a couple of rooms for the week, one single, one double please." Dean said pulling out his phony credit card.

"Um sir? Hello?" Dean waved his hand in front of the old man's face to catch his attention. Sam looked in the same direction the man was and saw Jack's blue hood covered head leaning against the back window facing away from them.

"Oh sorry thought I saw someone I knew." The man said apologetically. "A single and a double you said?"

"Yes sir, preferably next to each other." Sam added flashing his trademark boy scout smile at the man.

"I think we can so that." He smiled at Sam taking his credit card from him.

"So do you get many out of towners 'round here?" Sam asked conversationally, fishing for information.

"We get people passing through from time to time. Enough to keep the business going." The man answered.

"Friend of mine passed through awhile back. She told me it was a nice place to stay." Sam told him. Dean looked at him wondering what the hell Sam was up to.

"You mean the redhead?" The man asked nodding towards the car. Now he remembered that face. Dean looked sharply at the owner.

"You've got a good memory, it must have been months since she came through here." Sam said.

"A year or so. She stayed here for a couple months I recall. Its pretty hard to forget a face like that." The man said with a chuckle. Sam smiled and nodded, filing away the information for later.

"You're all set, Mr. Newton. Round the back and to your left." The owner said giving Dean the receipt to sign and the room keys.

"Thank you sir." Sam said taking the keys from Dean, silently thanking him for proving Sam's theory about Jack being in Vinita before right.

"Your welcome and tell your friend its good to see her again." The man called to Sam as he reached the door.

"Yes sir." Sam lied. No way was he tipping his hand this early in the game(oh no, I'm starting to sound like Dean, he thought). He wanted to know why Jack didn't want them to know about her time in this place.

"What was that?" Dean asked Sam.

"Just making conversation." Sam said innocently.

"No, you were fishing." Dean accused.

"Don't you think its weird how Jack's been acting since we got here. She's been here and doesn't want us to know that." Sam said lowering his voice as they got closer to the car.

"Bad idea Sam." Dean warned. "Besides how do you know she didn't just forget staying here? Do you remember every town we stay in?"

"And the behavior?" Sam asked.

"Could it be the demon who tried to kill her with her memories in my body a couple of weeks ago?" Dean asked sarcastically.

"Maybe." Sam muttered begrudgingly. He shut up because they were back at the car and Jack was eyeing him from the backseat.

"Got the rooms." Sam said unnecessarily as he got in the car.

"Good to know." Jack said. "Nice chat?"

"I guess." Sam answered shrugging casually. "Lets go, we still have to find out where they found the bodies so we can take a look around."

"Yeah okay." Jack said after a beat. You're way to on edge, she silently chastised herself. They did it all the time, chatting up the owners so they didn't look too close at the credit cards they were passing them.

Dean gave Sam a look that said _Bad idea _and started the car.

Jack walked quickly into her room and closed the door. She busied herself with pouring salt lines and laying down runes. Trying to block out the fact that she was only one level and three doors down from the room she'd lived in last time she was in that motel.

She remembered the exact position of the room because she'd counted out the steps dozens of times to make sure she had the fastest escape routes down on her mind after checking in the first time. Jack shrugged off the thought, chose twin Beretta's to hide beneath her dark hoodie and a fake student I.D. for the nearest University and went out the door. Once she crossed the threshold she looked at the staircase leading up to the second floor. Unbidden a memory came.

_Soft, eager kisses. Laughing as she squirmed from his grasp to run up the stairs, gesturing for him to follow, letting the straps from her tank top fall down as a silent invitation. Brian grinning up at her. By the time he followed her inside the salt lines were hidden by her clothes and he wouldn't have noticed a bomb going off when she pulled him to her._

Jack laughed at herself and tapped out the rhythm to 'Love In An Elevator' on the boys door.

"That an invitation?" Dean asked when he opened the door.

"Of course," Jack smirked, "But not for you. What d'ya say Sammy?" She asked flopping into a chair.

"No thanks, barely legal." Sam replied. "Besides there's no elevator here."

"You're making me doubt my seduction skills Sammy." Jack said mournfully.

"See behavior like that is exactly why we got a divorce." Dean scolded her with a grin.

**TBC…..**

**AN: Yes I suck, this a shamefully short chapter, but I'm trying to wean myself back into things after a temporary but very unpleasant sick time, bleh. I'll probably have something longer and better tomorrow, if not late tonight. Till then good things come to those who wait. Yeah I don't believe that shit either but bear with me. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Nope, I checked. My name isn't in the production credits so I guess I don't own Supernatural.**

"Hello sir, I'm Detective Morgan, Oklahoma State Police." Dean introduced himself to the desk man after walking into the sheriff's office and flashed his badge.

"I'm here about the murders." Dean explained at the officer's curious expression.

"Oh, of course. They said they were sending someone I just didn't know it would be so soon." The officer said standing up to shake Dean's hand.

"Right, well, given the circumstances we thought it best to expedite things." Dean said with a charming smile.

"I'm Officer Bradley by the way." He introduced himself and sat back down.

"Pleased to meet ya," Dean said. "Now if I could just ask you a few questions about where the bodies were discovered…"

"That's all in the files we sent." Officer Bradley told him.

"I know but I'd like to hear it again, you know sometimes the paper work can't cover everything." Dean said in his most official voice. Of course he hadn't seen any files but this guy didn't need to know that.

"Alright. Like it said in the files we faxed to you guys, some hikers found the first corpse about three months ago," Bradley started. Dean had struck gold with how cooperative the man was being. Hopefully they'd be done with the job before the real state police made their way to town and his cover was blown. He had a pocket full of paper clips handy just in case though.

"At first we thought it was an animal attack." Bradley continued.

"Why's that?" Dean asked.

"Well the first body wasn't as clean as the last two." Bradley said and winced at his own words. "I mean the dismemberment was less proficient, dirtier."

Dean nodded in understanding and took out the little notebook he'd brought along to jot down the notes, alongside a little doodle of a UFO.

"The hikers who found the first body, are they locals?" Dean asked.

"No they were visiting from Tulsa I believe." Officer Bradley said.

"And the other two bodies?" Dean asked.

"The second was just the torso, found by a couple of teenagers having a party in the woods." Officer Bradley said, "And the third was found by a local man, a hunter."

"And it was just a pair of legs found from the last, right?" Dean asked.

"Yes sir." He told him. "Like I said the severing became cleaner as each body was discovered."

"And you ran DNA to make sure the parts didn't come from the same body." Dean made it a statement. No need to irritate the law just yet.

"Yeah." The cop said. Dean nodded and wrote some more, then decided to take his chances with his next statement.

"You know we had some problems with the crime scene photos. Didn't travel well. I need to have a look at the originals." Dean said.

"We didn't send any photo's yet." Bradley said frowning.

"Oh right," Dean agree after an awkward pause, "Sorry, must've been thinking about another case."

The man looked at Dean for a second before nodding slowly. He got up from his chair and went to another room, not inviting the visiting "Detective" to join him. He came back a few minutes later with a thick file folder and put it in front of Dean.

"Those are some copies we were going to send you boys." Bradley said indicating at the file.

"Thanks. I'm gonna look over these with some colleagues I brought with me." Dean said gathering up the file. He nodded a goodbye to the officer, who was looking at him warily now and hurried out the door. Dean shook his head, that was close, he'd have to be more careful, step lighter from then on.

'On the bright side, I got crime scene photos.' Dean thought smirking triumphantly at the file in his hands.

Sam and Jack waited for him at the local library doing research. They commandeered two computers checking the town historical records to see if there was a pattern to the murders that went back farther than the last few months.

"I think I deserve a promotion." Dean said slapping the file down on the table between them. The librarian looked over at them irritably. Sam gave her an apologetic smile slightly ruined by the bruise still showing on his chin.

"What's that?" Jack asked eyeing the folder.

"Seriously, after this pull I think I deserve it. How does 'Captain Morgan' sound to you guys?" Dean laughed at his own joke.

"What's in the file 'Captain'?" Sam asked.

"Crime scene photos." Dean answered sitting down and propping his feet up on the table.

"How'd you get those?" Sam asked grabbing the file.

"My charming personality." Dean replied.

"No seriously." Sam said. Dean gave him a sour look and flipped him off.

"They already sent for the big boys and were more than happy to cooperate with me." Dean said. "We need to get this done before the real cops come sniffing."

"There's nothing in the town records of anything like this happening before." Jack said filling him in on their lack of progress. "We should go back and look this stuff over." She wanted to get inside before she got anymore looks of recollection by people.

"What's the rush?" Sam asked.

"People dieing." Jack said. "That ring a bell?"

"Smart ass. I meant we could still poke around the town. Talk to the locals." Sam said.

"We should look in woods too. Around where they found the bodies." Dean said.

"I can do that, while you guys play twenty questions." Jack suggested.

"No." Dean looked at her like she was slow. "Homicidal something dismembering people, we don't split up."

"You went to the police station by yourself." Jack reminded him.

"That was down the street. From now on we don't split up, okay?" Dean said in that voice that said not to fucking argue. He didn't take his eyes off of her till she nodded an affirmative.

"Louise, do you have t hat book I was waiting on?" A familiar voice reached Jack's ears. She sat very still so neither Sam nor Dean would take notice to the sudden tension in her form. She was glad she'd kept her hood up.

"No dear I'm sorry." The librarian said fondly.

Jack looked at the computer screen catching the reflections of the people just a few yards away from where she was sitting. Then Dean and Sam were getting to their feet, gathering the files, preparing to go. Jack couldn't think of any excuse to stay seated any longer and some small rebellious part of her wanted to look in the face of her old flame and smirk, dare him to say a word to her all this time later. However the bigger part of her remembered that he knew things and that was bad for her.

So she compromised with herself by walking beside Sam, whose height could conceal her and walking with her chin up so she didn't feel like she was hiding at all. She didn't breath until they walking towards the car, away from the library.

'You fucking coward.' She thought to herself.

"I think its getting late to start grilling the locals." She said. The sun had long ago set and the town wasn't particularly active after dark.

"Damn." She heard Sam mutter.

"Yeah, lets get something to eat and look at the pictures." Dean agreed.

The pictures of dismembered corpses shared table space with their dinner, an arrangement none of them batted an eye out, and a map of the wooded area marked where the body parts had been found.

"Definitely our kind of thing." Jack said holding up a close up of one the legs. It was a clean sever, but what she was concentrating on were the symbols carved into the leg. She didn't recognize them and that didn't happen very often. She took a bite out of her pizza and put the picture down.

"This looks a little familiar but I'm not sure where I've seen it." Sam frowned pointing at the symbol cut into the torso the teenagers discovered.

"Could call Bobby, he knows some of the more obscure symbols." Dean thought aloud looking over the macabre spread. He reached for another slice. E should go into the woods first thing. Jack, you lead the way."

"Why me?" Jack asked turning to him.

"Cause you know this place better than us." Dean said, never one for subtlety. Jack opened her mouth to argue and then closed it.

"We'll take the east trail, not many people use it." She said instead. She took the map from the table and carefully taped it to the wall. Then stood back to look at it. She knew those woods well, another precaution from when she was living there.

Sam looked at Dean, slightly annoyed that he seemed to want to thwart his attempts at tracing Jack's time in this place without her knowing, but his brother was ignoring him, instead studying the pictures. Sam took the last slice of pepperoni and tried not to think of the way Jack stiffened in the library just a couple of hours ago. He didn't know why she did, but he knew something was up with her. At least she'd admitted to knowing the area, that gave them something in their favor for the investigation, he reasoned.

That night Jack dreamed vividly of sweat soaked skin sliding together, twisting limbs and deep throated moans. She saw dark eyes, blown pupils and kiss ravaged lips beneath her. The dream started as one thing and quickly turned into another, the same as the way her dream ended in the car, with her putting her fist through the mirror, fifteen and angry at the world and most of all at herself. She saw violence and blood, the two constants in her life. She jerked awake, covered in sweat. She hopped out of bed and walked into the bathroom, turning the water as cold as it would go. They weren't dreams, they were memories.

"Fuck, get it together girl." She snarled at herself in the mirror.

**TBC……..**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I own only Jack, that's all.**

**AN1: Okay I've a little out of whack for the last couple of days(really the last two chapters should have been one long one, but whatever) but things are going to start coming along now. On with the show…..**

It was when they got to the second place marked on the map that Sam noticed the shape forming. It was so subtle that unless you were looking for more than just the dumping ground of a serial killer(which they were) you would have missed it.

"You guys wait a second." Sam said as he studied the map that Jack was holding, over her shoulder. He reached down and plucked the map form her and pulled a marker from his pocket.

"What?" She asked looking from the yellow taped off area twenty yards ahead to him.

"I just noticed something." Sam said pressing the map against a tree so he could trace over it. He played connect the dots with the map till he got half of a newly familiar symbol.

"Wasn't that carved on the legs they found?" He asked Jack. She nodded.

"And the torso." Dean put in looking at the map.

"Have you gotten a call back from Bobby about the symbol?" Sam asked Dean.

"Nope, I had to leave him a message, I think he's on a job." Dean said.

"Its not done yet." Jack pointed out. She nudged Sam out of the way so she could measure her fingers across the lines.

"Same distance between each body" Dean said grimly.

"Whoever or whatever's doing this isn't done yet." Sam said. "Two more bodies at least would finish the shape."

"When's the next full moon?" Jack asked.

"Starts in two days." Dean said. "We came to town just in time."

They continued on to the cordoned off piece of woodland, searching for anything the killer might have left behind, the kinds of things cops wouldn't look for. As with the first place they searched the faint smell of incense and something earthy clung to the place. It was easy to miss, they were in a damned forest, everything smelled earthy. A shallow circle was cut into the ground where the smell was most prominent as well.

"Ritual sacrifice. I guess its a 'whoever' than" Sam sighed looking at the ground.

"A sacrifice for what though?" Jack asked biting her lip in irritation. This was getting more and more fucked up.

"You notice none of the victims were locals?" Dean asked taking a deep drink from a water bottle. They'd been traipsing through the forest for hours, each crime scene begin a couple miles apart. Just for t hat he wanted to kick someone's ass.

"All out of towners, all alone. All people no one would miss for awhile, if at all." Dean continued thinking back to the files on the victims the cops had been able to identify.

"Think its a local?" Sam asked.

"What do you think Jack?" Dean asked instead of a answering. She kicked at a piece of brush on the ground.

"Yeah." She told them grimly.

"Right, well" Dean took another swig. "I think its time we introduced ourselves to the neighborhood.

The first stop was the home of the teenagers that found the first body. They were cousins who lived next door to each other, named Alan and James. Jack knew that without looking at the file. They lived right across the street from Brian.

"I'm gonna do a door to door on this side of the street." Jack told the boys as they parked across from t he cousin's house, only a few feet from his house.

"What'll you say?" Sam asked.

"That I'm a university student writing an article in the school paper." Jack said pulling her fake student I.D. from under her t-shirt and dangling it in front of him.

"Its not after dark, so don't go momma bearing me either." She told Dean sticking her tongue out at him.

"Do I ruin your fun?" Dean asked feigning hurt.

"Yes." Sam and Jack answered at the same time.

"Yeah well, eyes open okay? No telling which one of these is our nut job." Dean said. "Sam you should start a door to door over here, we'll meet up here." Jack tried not to look relieved that Dean had pointed Sam away from her side of street.

They got out of the car, heading in opposite directions. Jack walked up Brian's steps, his car was in the driveway, he just got home from work, if he was keeping the same schedule as before. Jack didn't bother knocking, he wouldn't open the door for her. Instead she felt around the top of the door frame where she knew he kept a spare key and let herself in. She closed the door soundlessly behind her, walking into the empty living room. She heard the shower going upstairs and decided to make herself comfortable on his couch.

Jack closed her eyes and thought of the brief good times there and that very room. Back when she was feeling something that wasn't fear or anger for the first time in a long time.

_"I get the feeling," Brian said lying in bed with her one night. "I get the feeling sometimes that you're dangerous."_

_"What?" Jack asked not letting on the tingle of nervousness at his words. She sat up on her elbows and turned her head to look at him._

_"Just sometimes I get the feeling you are." He shrugged moving a strand of hair out of her eyes. _

_"Maybe I am." Jack said lowering her eyelids She moved to straddle his waist pushing him back into the pillows._

_"Oh yeah?" He asked. Jack nodded._

_"Is that why you never stay the night? You have a secret double life you have to get to?" He asked jokingly with a hint of a serious question there. Jack looked down at him and suddenly thought that maybe she could tell him the truth. Maybe she could tell him everything._

A door closed upstairs. Jack sat straighter and fingered the knife up the long flannel shirt she wore over her t-shirt. She didn't think she'd have to use it but the two of them had had a less than pleasant split.

"Long time no see." She said when Brian came around the corner. He jumped when he saw her there, his brown eyes widening. He reached over to turn on the light switch, illuminating the room a little bit more. His dark brown hair was damp and clinging to his forehead. He stood a little taller than her, it was hard to believe he and Sam were the same age, Sam just seemed so much bigger and tougher than the man Jack was standing in front of.

And, she thought as Brian edged cautiously into the room glaring at her, Sam wouldn't have laid a finger at her at the age of sixteen.

"How'd you get in here?" Brian demanded.

"Key." Jack said, "You should change the hiding place."

"Outgrowing B&E?" He asked.

"Its broad daylight." Jack said.

"What are you doing here Jack? Somehow I don't think its to get back together." Brian said standing across the couch from her. Jack snorted.

"A few bodies have been found around here." Jack said getting down to business. "We came here to check it out before anyone else got hurt or killed."

"We?" Brian asked.

"Yeah, we." Jack said.

"The local occult scene, what do you know about it?" Jack asked.

"What local occult scene. You're the local occult scene." Brian told her.

"Funny. Someone's working shit here, Brian. You know everyone in this place, who do you think might be doing it? Who's been acting suspicious." Jack asked keeping her cool.

"Do your new friends know about you?" Brian asked.

"That's none of your fucking business." She snapped getting to her feet. He stumbled back a step. Smart man.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming into my house and interrogating me." Brian said. "Why do you care anyway? I thought you avoided the supernatural."

"New line of work." Jack said smugly.

"Old one not as lucrative anymore. I doubt that." Brian retorted. Jack gritted her teeth. She'd walked right into that one.

"Shut the hell up." She hissed. She was glad she came here alone, she didn't want Sam or Dean to hear this little exchange. Too many holes would need to be filled. Her phone rang but she ignored it for the time being.

"Or what you'll hurt me?" Brian asked.

"You wanna do this? Fine." Jack said. "You wanted to know. You asked me where'd I'd been. Remember that?"

"I should have known, you wouldn't be able to handle it." She said scornfully. Jack tossed the spare key down on the coffee table. She crossed the living room to the front door.

"I guess you small town types scare easily." Jack said in parting as she opened the front door.

Sam was walking up the walkway when she came down the steps, Dean coming in from the other side. Either they had some uncooperative neighbors or they'd found something important. She really hoped it was the latter. The door opened loudly behind her and she sped up reaching Sam.

"It wasn't the supernatural stuff that bothered me Jack." Brian called making Dean stop in his tracks and Sam look sharply at her.

"It was finding out you were a fifty dollar a suck whore that did it." Brian said loudly freezing Jack in her tracks.

Everything slowed down. Everything narrowed down to those words. Said in the harsh light of day. She could feel Sam looking at her but she wouldn't look at him, she couldn't look at him. Her heart sounded very loud in her ears.

"Jack?" Sam said softly and his hand brushed her arm.

She jerked away and ran.

"So what's the going rate these days-" She heard Brian start to ask but he was cut off and there was a loud slamming sound she didn't bother to look back to investigate.

Jack ran fast and quiet, cutting through yards in case she was being followed by the boys. She moved and ducked past houses full of kids who'd never had to get down on their knees so they could eat.

"So what's the going rate these day-" Dean slammed the man by his throat against his front door, holding him off the ground so his feet dangled off the ground. His free hand automatically went to the gun under his shirt.

"Dean!" Sam snapped out of his shocked state and ran up the porch. He grabbed Dean by the arm pinning the man to the wall, trying in vain to wrest Dean away before he killed the stranger.

"Dean we have to find Jack now." Sam strained to get through to Dean. His brother's hand tightened cutting off the man's oxygen even more before he let go. The man fell down hard, coughing, gasping for air. Dean's hard green eyes darkened like he was going to kill him and as Sam looked down on the guy who'd just called their Jack a whore he wanted to let him.

"Jack ran off." Dean made it a statement not a question.

"Yeah we have to find her." Sam said, his hands still on Dean's shoulders, holding him back. He dropped them and Dean nodded starting down the steps towards the car. Sam was about to join them when-

"I'm calling the cops on you and that little slut." The man rasped glaring hatefully at Dean's retreating back.

Sam snapped around, smashing his fist into the man's face as he was trying to stand again. His head made a satisfying crack against the wall. Sam drew his fist back again when Dean beeped the horn angrily.

"I don't know who you are or what you know think you know about Jack, but if you come near her again or even say her name nothing will keep you safe from me and my brother." Sam whispered menacingly close to the man's ear. He turned his back on him without another word. He yanked the door open and took his seat, barley getting the door closed before Dean gunned it out of there.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked when he noticed the direction they were driving in-back to the motel.

"You think she went back to the rooms?" Sam asked doubtfully.

"No I think if Jack doesn't want to be found she won't be." Dean said. The _yet _went unspoken. "But I know she won't disappear without the letters, or the pictures of her family. She'll go back for those first."

Sam nodded seeing the logic in that.

"So here's what we're going to do. I'll drop you off at the motel and you'll wait in her room."

"And do what? Hide in the closet and trap her there?" Sam asked dubious that that would work.

"Yeah, you'll hide in the closet, in the bathroom or under the damn bed if you have to Sammy." Dean ordered raising his voice.

"I'll stash the car somewhere and walk back. So when she does come back she'll think we're still out looking for her." Dean said.

"Then what?" Sam asked.

"Then we'll tie her to a fucking chair if we have to, to make her tell us what the hell that was all about back there." Dean said in determination.

Sam was quiet, studying his older brother. His mind raced with the implications the man had thrown out, the look of horror and shame on Jack's face. The quickness of her breathing before she took off. Dean was right, if Jack wanted to disappear she could. At least for a little while until Sam and Dean found her and dragged her ass back to them. If this was the plan, Sam trusted that it would work, because Dean thought the way Jack did and Sam was starting to as well.

He looked out the passenger side window letting his worry take over. If it was true? If what the man said was true about Jack-? Sam shook his head trying to will away the fury and anguish at the thought of someone he cared about being victimized. It was too much for him to wrap his head around. Innocence was a luxury none of them had but this was a while different monster from the ones they faced everyday of the week. He couldn't shoot this to keep it form hurting her.

'Please come back.' Sam thought. He looked at his brother, who had a death grip on the steering wheel. The internal conflict was visible in his eyes. Sam wanted to say something. He wished he could say that it would be okay, but he didn't know that would. He wanted to say that the asshole was obviously full of shit but somehow he knew that wasn't accurate either. So neither man spoke, each caught in their own thoughts and worires.

'You better come back.' Dean was thinking catching glimpses in his minds eye of Jack's cock sure grin and flashing brown eyes.

It hurt in a fundamental way to know this truth. He knew it, somewhere he thought he always suspected something along these lines. Maybe from the day they met when Sam grabbed her arm and her first instinct was to put a gun to his head. She didn't like to be touched by strangers, that was easy to overlook, he didn't either and neither did Sam, it was the stigma of violence. A natural reaction for them.

Dean sped up, he didn't to lose this small window of opportunity. Something was breaking in Jack and he was determined to fix it as best he could.

**TBC…..**

**AN2: This particular story had been in my head from the start of m Hunters series, so its very close to my heart. Sam's musings in this part are longer than Dean's because Dean is a very 'Okay this is how it is we'll deal with it' sort of person. He only knows that someone he cares about is busted up inside and he needs to fix it and that's all he needs to know. Sam needs more information otherwise he'll speculate till his ears bleed. Okay the author is done rambling now. Thanks for reading this edition od Hunters: BMR. Reviews are like chocolate, an addiction for me. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I own Jack, her history, Chris and other oc's. Everything else is borrowed.**

"Sam," Dean called when to his brother as he got out of the car. Sam turned to look at his brother inquisitively.

"If she gets back before I do, don't do anything yet." Dean said.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked crossing his arms over his chest.

"Don't say anything. Don't push her for answers till I get back to you guys." Dean said.

"You think I can't handle the situation." Sam fumed. "What did you go to sensitivity training while I wasn't looking Dean?"

"No and that's why you're not going to do anything." Dean said impatiently. "If Jack feels even an ounce of pity from you she'll wall off. If she catches any disgust from you she'll get on the defensive and we won't get her back."

"I would never treat her badly for what's happened to her." Sam said angrily. He couldn't believe his brother thought he would.

"I know that, but right now all she's thinking is that she'd going to be rejected again for this." Dean explained getting out of the car to talk his brother without having to shout across a parking lot to each other.

"Just treat her like Jack." Dean said in a low voice. Sam met his eyes. He wasn't sure what he'd been planning on saying to their friend when she reappeared. He wanted to be there for her, he just didn't really know how.

"Yeah, alright." He said looking down at the ground.

"Okay. Okay I'll be back in a few. I gotta stash the car farther away, because Jack-Jack knows the area." Dean said.

"Jack-Jack?" Sam asked amused.

"What?" Dean gave a fleeting smile over his shoulder as he jogged back to the car.

Sam picked the lock on the door easily. Inside Jack's room Sam leaned against the wall behind the door, so she wouldn't immediately see him when she came home. After thinking for a moment he walked to the bed and plucked her ever present backpack from underneath. He was going to take a page from Dean's book and holding the precious object hostage.

* * *

Dean drove a mile out of town to hide the car near a patch of forest. He looked at the setting sun, made a mental note to thrash Jack for going MIA while a psycho killer was on the loose in town and started back the way he came, making sure to keep to the side roads just in case she was watching, the sneaky bitch. Thinking of ways to chastise her for going missing was a way to distract himself from wanting to go back to that assholes place and hurt him in some very creative ways.

Who the hell was that son of a bitch anyway? Who was he to talk to their Jack like that? Didn't he know she could snap his neck with her bare hands? And why the hell hadn't she? Dean snorted, annoyed, he would have loved to see that, but maybe later. After they convinced Jack that it was fine, they knew survival was the name of the game, by any means necessary sometimes.

Didn't mean he didn't want to track down and kill a motherfucker. This shit went down when Jack was young, too young. And he saw what she looked like at fifteen, t here was no mistaking her for anything but a teenager back then. He had to stop, these thoughts would only lead to actually going back to that house. And that was no good, not yet. He also had to worry about Sam.

Sam meant well, but he'd go the victim route. A shit plan anyway he thought of it. Jack didn't need a counselor, she needed her friends.

Dean turned off his brain as he spotted the motel. It was completely dark by then and he didn't see any lights penetrating the thin cotton of the curtains to the rooms. She wasn't back yet, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then he worried some more.

Dean knocked on the door so Sam would know it was him and not try to tackle him or anything.

"Dean?" Sam said cautiously on the other side. Dean rolled his eyes.

"No its Santa Clause. Who the hell else would it be?" Dean said. Sam huffed, annoyed at him and opened the door wide enough for Dean to slip through then closed and locked it again.

"No sign of her yet." Sam said resuming his post against the wall.

Dean pulled out the chair from the small table in the corner and sat down, nearly invisible in the dark room.

"I knew about a girl in my second year dorm who hooked," Sam said from his corner.

"Yeah, was she hunted by blood sucking creatures and alone as a kid too?" Dean asked.

"She did it so she could buy designer clothes and bags, after her parents stopped paying for her expenses." Sam explained with the edge of reprehension in his voice.

"People are crazy." Dean muttered.

"Yeah." Sam agreed.

* * *

Jack skulked down the empty street, dodging the police cruiser that passed by. Town wide curfew, she'd discovered while wandering aimlessly, listening to other people talk and gossip without them noticing her. It was easy to disappear among normal people. People saw what they wanted to see most of the time. It used to be a game to her. She'd cut her hair shorter and make a fake id that said 'Eric' and show it to see if she was called on it. People saw the name and the M and voila she became an effeminate boy instead of a girl. People saw what they wanted to see, what was easiest for them to see. Some games were to keep what sanity she had left in place.

She didn't let herself feel anything when she went down on a stranger for twenty bucks, if she had she might have killed someone. Either the men or herself. One time she came close to killing one of the men, a guy older tan her usual targets, but she couldn't wait around all night for some twenty something who couldn't find a date and wanted a quick hand job or whatever. This man came fast in her hand and without warning so she stole his wallet even after he paid her. When she opened it she got sick, got angry and almost went back to kill the sick bastard.

Inside was a picture of his family. Pretty strawberry blonde wife, two little boys and standing next to daddy in the portrait a girl not much younger than she was. With hair almost as red as her own and who looked a bit like her if Jack squinted. Mother fucker used her as a replacement.

Jack forced the memory away. It was getting late, she had to get her things. She'd use her phony credit cards to get a bus ticket to Tulsa and then decide what to do from there. She couldn't stand to think about it too much. The thought of being alone again was almost too much to bear.

Jack walked mechanically to the motel, keeping an open eye for Sam and Dean. She didn't want to face them. When she saw the Impala wasn't in the parking lot she felt a momentary relief tinged with sadness.

She walked to her door, taking the key out of her pocket and unlocked the door without looking. She walked inside the dark room and tiredly tossed the key in the direction of the table. It had been a long day and it was far from being over.

Jack reached for the light switch, turning it on, saw the dark forms on either side of her periphery and lashed out at the first one with her foot taking out her gun and aiming at the second with the snub nose .38 she'd had up her sleeve.

"Whoa, easy darlin." Dean held up his hands to show it was just him and 'just him' was unarmed. Jack looked to see Sam pinned to the wall by her booted foot on his throat. Not any easy fete considering he had eight inches on her height wise, with her sneakers on. Tall s.o.b.

Dean was at her back without her noticing his movement and was blocking the door. In the dim light he looked all sorts of dangerous, not towards her, but to anything and everything else.

"I think he's running out of air." Dean said calmly. Sam was looking at her patiently, waiting for her to remove her foot. Jack lowered her leg to the ground slowly and edged backwards keeping her eyes on both the brothers. She lowered her lids to glance at the window but Sam was there blocking it and holding her backpack in his right hand.

"Give it back." She said wondering at how her voice sounded so tired and broken.

"No." Sam said softly, there was a red mark on his neck.

"Sit down Jack." Dean ordered firmly. She had no choice. Sam had her most prized possessions in his hand. Jack walked backwards to her bed and sat up against the headboard.

"Who was that man?" Dean asked calmly but with a dark edge to his voice. His eyes were unreadable.

"Brian McDonald." Jack answered.

"Your ex?" Dean asked.

"Yes." She said.

"Jack-" Sam started and stopped, looking at a loss for what to say. She could read him from a mile away. He looked sad.

"Give me my things so I can go." Jack said looking down at the bedspread.

"No." Sam said again more forcefully this time.

"What do you want from me?" Jack asked without any real heat.

"To know what happened." Dean said.

"No you don't." Jack said.

"Try me." Dean said in challenge.

"What? You want the truth!" Jack demanded snapping her head up to meet both their eyes.

"Yes." Dean said in a rough voice.

"You want to hear that I whored myself out when I was a teenager? That I was a hustler, a hooker, a fucking rentgirl?" Jack snarled giving them no quarter. "That I rationalized things by telling myself it was just my mouth I let them fuck."

"Stop." Sam whispered biting his lip. He swallowed deep and Jack felt another piece of her break, the sharp, jagged bits cutting deep.

"We want to know what happened, Jack." Dean took a step forward. "What happened from the night Chris died to the day we met you."

Jack felt the lump in her throat she'd been ignoring all afternoon. She couldn't. She couldn't tell them all that. She hadn't even told Brian everything, just the basics, psychic, bad things hunting her down, oh yeah and the brush with prostitution. Other things, that night, those were-

"I can't." Jack said, her voice cracking slightly.

"Please." Sam pleaded quietly.

She was quiet for so long, Sam didn't think she was going to answer and part of him, a big part of him didn't want her to. It was a lot to have to take in, he wanted to go back to ordinary problems, their kind of ordinary problems, things he could figure out. Sam didn't know the rules in a situation like this. It was one of the few times in his life he would've chosen hunting over "normal".

"I don't remember much from the night he died." Jack started barely above a whisper. She was looking down at her hands, that were clutching the coverlet tightly. Like she was trying to keep herself in place long enough to tell her tale.

"I-I get…flashes every now and then but I don't know a lot of it. PTSD, the guy they made me talk to right after it happened said. That was before I ran from foster care. I blocked it out, most of what happened. All I know is that after Chris died I nearly went insane."

**TBC……….**

**AN: Requisite Author's Note here, ignore it if you please. For the beginning of this chapter I had the song Kansas-Carry On My Wayward Son playing in my head throughout the boy's parts. Then Three Doors Down-Love Me When I'm Gone for Jack's. The next chapter is going to be a complete flashback from three years ago. A long ass flashback too, covering much of Jack's time alone and how she met Tommy and Billie. Till then….**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own Jack, her history, Chris and other oc's. Everything else is borrowed.**

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Jack woke in the middle of the night, not sure why. She laid perfectly still in her bed and listened. There, a strangled sound coming from the other side of the small apartment she and Chris had been living in for a month while she studied for her GED. Jack lowered her feet to the floor carefully and waited.

"No! Don't!" Chris's voice cried out. Jack was on her feet, gun in hand and across the threshold to her room in a second.

Chris was thrashing in his bed, whimpering and gasping, trying to break free of the nightmares hold. Jack put the gun on the dresser and crossed the room to him.

"Chris, wake up." She said firmly shaking him by the shoulders. Chris's eyes shot open and he looked fearfully around him like he wasn't sure where he was till he focused back on Jack.

"What was it?" Jack asked, wanting to get the information before the after effects started.

Chris was shaking to hard though to answer. Jack stood, went to the bathroom they shared and wet a cloth for his forehead, the way she'd done for as long as she could remember. Next she went to kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, for some reason that always settle him, and a codeine tablet. She brought all three back to him and started mentally packing.

"We have to get out of town." Chris mumbled when she came back into the room.

"How long?" Jack asked. She was used to this. Every time Chris had a vision about something bad going down in the area they currently lived in, they'd pick up and leave quietly. Jack stopped questioning it, but she was sure that Chris had found some way to induce the visions to keep them a step ahead.

He was in pain because he wanted to keep her safe.

"A couple days." Chris managed before starting to gag. She was there with the waste basket.

"Here." Jack said in a soft voice holding the cup of juice up to his lips. Chris gulped it down greedily, downing half the liquid till she stopped him.

"Open." Jack ordered holding the painkiller out to him. Chris opened his mouth obediently and downed the pill, chasing it down with the rest of the juice. He laid back in his bed and Jack put the damp cloth over his eyes.

She always marveled at how young her uncle looked at moments like these. He looked so scared, vulnerable and just plain lost. Like he wanted badly to take care of her and himself but wasn't entirely sure how. Her whole upbringing was hit or miss. She wouldn't have changed it for the world, aside from the occasional bad guy trying to kill, maim, enslave, etc. her that is.

Jack stayed by Chris's bedside all night, staying there for when he muttered nonsense, cursed himself, his visions, the fire that killed her mom and dad. He never cursed Jack's name though.

Sometimes she really couldn't believe something as common as a house fire could have taken them, with what she saw and faced everyday.

Jack woke with a sniff neck from falling asleep in a chair next to Chris's bed. She rolled it till it cracked, stretched her shoulders and back till they resettled. Chris was still asleep, finally able to rest at the crack of dawn. It was now noon and she had to start packing before chancing to wake him up.

First she needed good coffee and a long hot shower. She'd settle instant and lukewarm though. After stripping out of her t-shirt and boxers Jack carefully removed the old bandages from her wrists. The stitches held the formerly smooth skin together but the wounds needed to be cleaned every twelve hours and they would leave a nasty scar, the docs said that couldn't be helped. Nastier now that they were moving on and they'd have to take the stitches out at home.

"Damn witch." Jack said wetting down a hand towel with antiseptic and dabbing it gently around her wrists. After she was done Jack fingered the long strand of beads looped over and over around her throat, she could use that as a bracelet, she mused.

The water was warmer than she'd thought it would be, an almost unheard of luxury

"She was a black haired beauty with big dark eyes, with points of her own, sittin way up high.." Jack sang to herself stepping under the spray. "Way up firm and high."

"Out past the cornfields was where it got heavy out in the back of my '60 Chevy."

She scrubbed her hands through her hair whistling the tune that was stuck in her head.

"Workin on a night move, trying to lose those awkward teenage blues, mmm and it was summer time. In the sweet summer time." Chris teased her relentlessly for singing in the shower, claiming singing while cooking wasn't nearly as dopy as shower karaoke. Those were his exact words.

All things considered Jack was in a good mood when she stepped out of the shower. She wasn't one to brood, this was how things were. She grinned at her reflection in the mirror, maybe when Chris hauled his Psychic hotline reject ass out of bed she'd broach the tattoo subject with him again. He had one, she reasoned, why couldn't she?

Breakfast was a dozen Twinkies and the last of the Krispy Kremes. The she went into her bedroom and started to take her clothes out of the rickety dresser that came with the apartment, putting them in her duffel bag. She took the sawed off from behind the headboard, the throwing knife from under the mattress and the other miscellaneous weapons and wrapped them carefully before putting them in a separate bag. In total she had ten types of blades and six automatic weapons hidden in her bedroom. The apartment may not have been much but nothing got through that front door unchecked.

Jack heard a shuffling groan and smirked. This was one of less fucked up visions, if he was able to move less than twenty hours later

"You up?" She called.

"This sucks." Chris groaned. Jack laughed. It was easy to forget he was her guardian, mother/father/uncle all in one. Sometimes it felt like she was living with a big brother. He was barely twenty when her parents died, leaving him with a baby girl.

"Did you clean your-"

"Yes, did you take the other pill I left you?" Jack countered his question.

"Yes, mom." Chris retorted, s he could practically hear him roll his eyes.

* * *

"Two days, a week at most." Chris said over dinner. "I'll tie up the loose ends here and meet you in Atlanta."

"You better take care of yourself." Jack said. They'd spent the day packing things up and making calls to get a bus ticket waiting for Jack at the station and a motel on the edge of the city they'd picked for their new temp home.

"I will Sparks. We'll call each other every two hours to check in." Chris said growing serious. This was their arrangement every time they split up. Calls every two hours exactly till they were back together and the letters. In case something went wrong.

"What's trying to eat me this week?" Jack joked.

"Not funny." Chris said his eyes darkening.

"C'mon it is a little. Things are always trying to eat me. Its like my thing." Jack said being glib.

He was so much more serious since she was nearly bled dry a few of weeks back. She took in stride, she was alive right? And the bad witch was dead.  
"Jack." Chris had a pained expression on his face. He looked tired and haggard. His reddish blonde hair was disheveled, starting to get shot through with some premature graying and his dark eyes were glassy. He wasn't sleeping enough, even less than usual and he wasn't eating as much as he needed to.

"Maybe I should just go with you." Chris said rubbing the back of his neck.

"We need the money from this weeks paycheck." Jack rationalized shaking her head. He'd found work as a bartender and the money was too good for him not to finish out the week, especially if they were starting fresh again.

"When did you get older than me?" Chris asked narrowing his eyes at her with a small smile.

"When I turned six." Jack answered.

The next morning she was on a bus to Atlanta, lazily bobbing her head to The Perfect Drug.

* * *

A week after that she was standing over Chris on a desolate back country road with his blood on her hands.

He hadn't called for four days. He never missed a call. Ever. The only time he had it was a disaster so he never missed any anymore. Jack was about to go back for him when he finally did. His voice was indistinct and scratchy. She got a location. She stole a car and everything else was blank.

Jack was hyperventilating, staring down at Chris's vacant eyes. Blood was dripping from the corner of his mouth and his throat…..God his throat. It wasn't there anymore. Just a gaping red gore was left, he was nearly decapitated. Jack's legs gave under her as hysteria took over and she started screaming and she couldn't stop. When he voice died and she was left empty and cold her common sense took over where everything else failed.

She reached gingerly into Chris's jacket pocket and found his cell phone. She pressed 911 and let it ring. She rubbed down anything that might have her prints on it and climbed to her feet. Getting back in her stolen vehicle and driving through the night and most of the next day were a blur. She knew she didn't stop and that she ditched the car far from her motel.

The shock came and went. She was dead inside when she opened his letter, reading and re-reading the words till the tears threatened the ink on the page. She felt when she looked at the drying blood on her hands and clothes and practically tore them off, running to the bathroom. She turned the water scalding hot and stepped in, ignoring pain of the too hot water. She scrubbed till the blood was gone, she scrubbed till her skin broke and her blood replaced his.

After awhile she slid to the ground rocking back and forth on the shower tiles. Something was wrong, why couldn't she remember? Something happened between getting the call from Chris asking for her help and him being dead. Had she seen the killer? Was she losing her mind? What did it? What the fuck took her family from her?

* * *

The police and social services found her in that motel. Madeleine broke the news to her, not knowing she already knew.

"She's in shock." She heard the woman's voice say to the police that had escorted her there. She felt a jacket being thrown over her shoulders and she was begin herded out of the room. She made some whining broken noise trying to go back for her backpack but for once Madeleine was stronger than her and simply gestured for the cop holding it to give it to her as she pushed Jack out the door and down the stairs towards the car waiting there.

There was a plane ride she couldn't be bothered with paying attention to and she was in New Orleans, staying with Maddy till they got something else sorted out for her.

"Didn't make any arrangements-"

"Poor child-"

"No family left-"

"Cursed-that family is-"

"Where will she go?"

Scattered bits of conversation made there way to her ears as the people dealing with the arrangements spoke about her like she wasn't there. In a way she wasn't, nothing felt real. Nothing but the howling pain.

"What's wrong with her?" Madeleine asked the counselor she was made to sit with. Jack barely uttered a word during the session.

"Post traumatic Stress Disorder." The doctor answered.

"You knew didn't you?" Madeleine asked during the car ride back. Jack looked at her dully. The older woman' eyes were rimmed with red, she looked so desperate Jack wanted to reach out and tell her it was going to be okay. She knew how to take care of people, now who would she take care of though?

Chris was buried in the family plot. An above ground cemetery, like the ones she used to love playing in as a child. He was in the plot between her father and her grandmother. A surprising number of people showed up, family friends and acquaintances. Some approached her offering condolences and offers of help, "if she needed anything", "if they could do anything". Most thought, stayed away, there were more whispers about her cursed family. More people pointing out to each other that she was the last of her family.

She was placed in a foster home within a few days of the burial. Maddy kicked up a ruckus, saying she didn't give a damn about a conflict of interest, Jack was staying with her. In the end she lost that battle.

* * *

'Nathaniel.' The name rang in her ears, waking her from her sleep her third night in the facility she was placed in.

Jack shot up in bed, feeling the first real emotion in weeks. Anger, raw, hot fury boiling in her veins. She didn't remember, just knew. Vampires. One in particular, name of Nathaniel. The leader of the pack that Chris had run afoul of.

Jack kicked the sheets off her legs, carefully, suddenly aware that she was in a crowded dorm room. She opened Chris's letter again and read it over. She fixated on him telling her that if something had killed him not to go looking for revenge. Did he know? Did he see his death? Or did he see hers and that's why he sent her ahead alone?  
She didn't know. All she knew was that she was going to disobey his last request to her. All her life she'd lost people. Now she could do something about it. Make this one thing right. If she tried this she'd die, more than likely. She didn't care though.

Jack wrote out a quick, smartass note to Madeleine, packed her meager belongings and was out of the city by morning.

She poured herself into her revenge. First she found out everything she could about the species. Jack kicked down the door of a witch she'd run errands for a short time in Baton Rouge telling the woman she needed information.

"I don't nuthin bout vampires." She'd insisted.

"Then tell me who does." Jack said with deadly calm.

"I know a hunter name of Joseph Black, he might know." She said writing the man's name and number with a trembling hand. She knew the child who stood in front of her's power. Before leaving the state Jack cut her long red hair short enough to pass herself off as a boy, to get past the Amber Alert setup about her. Then she was gone.

Joseph Black told her he wasn't taking kids under his wing. She embedded a knife in his car tire and told him she didn't need training she needed to know how to track a vampire and what myths were real.

He pointed her in the direction of a man named Daniel Elkin.

"Who did you lose, little girl?" The old man asked when Jack wandered into the out of the way bar in the small mountain town he lived near.

"Everyone." Jack answered. "I heard you were the best at hunting them." Jack spoke low taking a sip from his shot. He glared at her and ordered another from the waitress.

"What makes you think I'll help you?" Daniel asked eyeing her cautiously. He took in her ripped cammo pants and the black shirt, the slight outline of blades underneath. She'd walked into the place unnoticed by everyone but him.

"I don't. But I'm going after Nathaniel whether you help me or not. This way I have a better chance of taking as many of them out as I can." She said.

"You'll die." He said.

"Already have." She replied letting the never ending sorrow bleed into her expression. It was a look all of their kind could recognize in themselves. No one chose to do this in the beginning.

"Come on." He said laying down a few bills on the bar top, then leaving the bar.

"How'd you get here?" He asked warily.

"Walked." Jack shrugged. She'd hitched to get as close to the town as she could and then hoofed it the rest of the way.

Daniel grunted something about young people under his breath. He was carrying a brown leather, beaten up journal stuffed with papers under his arm. Jack wondered how long he'd been at this.

"You got a name?" He asked.

"Jack." She answered.

"I'll give you a ride." He said pointing to his truck. "Just so you know girl, if you try anything funny I can put a clip in you faster than you can blink." He warned when she put her hand on the passenger door handle. Jack looked at him and nodded once in acknowledgement.

They drove in silence to his cabin. The place was hidden against a backdrop of forest, invisible unless you were looking for it. Jack hopped out following him inside, past lines of salt and runes. He had a shotgun pointed at her almost as soon as she stepped inside.

"Weapons." Daniel said. Jack gritted her teeth but complied, removing the knife under her shirt and the gun from her pocket. She took off her jacket so he'd see that was all she had.

"Come inside." Daniel said after he collected the weapons. Jack stepped lightly away from the entry way.

"You already know some things." He stated.

"I know what's out there and how to fight, but I don't know much about vampires." Jack answered. She wasn't going to tell him about her ability, he didn't trust her, she didn't trust him. It wasn't personal, just fact.

"You know anything about vampires?" He asked her beckoning towards a chair at a table that only had two chairs, on of which was covered in dust.. Jack nodded and sat down. He let the gun rest against his chair, always within reach.

"I know they can go out in the day, that they travel in packs and that a cross to the face won't do a damn thing to stop one from killing you." Jack said recounting her scant knowledge.

"And I know the name of the one I want to kill." She added.

"What name would that be?" Daniel asked her running his finger over his book. Jack couldn't believe she'd found someone who knew as much as this guy was said to know. Someone who'd spent their whole killing what was now her prey.

"Nathaniel." She said. His hissed through his teeth.

"First of all Jack," He said sitting forward with his hands clasped together. "You don't kill just one of them. If you know they're pack animals you should have realized that."

"Shut up and don't say anything yet." He said when she opened her mouth to defend herself.

"You don't kill just one. And once you kill one of them the rest of his pack will hunt you down till you're dead or they are. Are you willing to get a target put on the back of your head?" He asked looking her dead in the eye so she'd know the full weight of what she was attempting.

"Yes." Jack answered without hesitation. She couldn't tell him she already had a bulls eye on her back without telling him about her ability.

He studied her with clear eyes that had seen a lot in their time. The locals had said he was a crazy old man when she asked around about him, but she knew better. Hardened, yes, paranoid, of course but definitely not crazy.

"You stayin in town?" Daniel asked.

"Yup." She replied.

"You think you can make it up here in the afternoons?" He asked.

"Yes." Jack promised. If she had to hike there every damn day she would till she got the information she wanted.

"Good." Daniel said.

* * *

Everyday for a month Jack trekked to Daniel Elkins cabin and he taught her what she needed to know about vampires, hunting and tracking them, knowing how to spot them before it was too late.

"The one you're after, Nathaniel, he's a dangerous sonuvabitch." The old man told her one day while they were on his porch sharpening knives.

"Aren't they all?" Jack asked with a small smile.

"He's one of the last two of a whole damn family of bloodsuckers I killed. He and his brother Luther." Daniel told her passing the whet stone her way.

"This Luther gonna be with him?" Jack asked.

"They travel in different hunting parties, but Luther will come gunning after you when you kill his brother." Daniel told her gravely. Something about the way he spoke when Jack look up from her work. Till then it was always 'if' never 'when'. She wasn't going to say anything but it stuck out with her.

When she got back to her motel she gathered her belongings.

* * *

A month later she had them. In the backwoods of Alabama. She'd been watching them for two weeks straight, coming and going from their barn hideout. There were five in his hunting party including him. She looked at the face of the man who'd taken her family from her, memorizing it. Then all she had to do was let herself get caught.

"Wakey wakey." A female voice purred in Jack's ear. She looked up eyes wide with confusion at the woman kneeling over her in her tent.

"Wh-who are you?" Jack squeaked.

"Don't worry about that sweetie." The woman said running a cold hand along Jack's cheek.

"Are you alone here?" The woman asked. Jack bit her lip and looked down.

"It isn't safe for a kid to be out here by themselves." She said grinning at her hungrily. Jack trembled pushing herself backwards in her tent but the woman reached out and hit her once, knocking her out cold.

Jack woke hearing voices. She was being carried somewhere, then unceremoniously dropped on the ground somewhere. She kept her breathing steady and her eyes close when she heard a door being locked.

"Billie I want to go home." A young boys voice said somewhere close by. The voice was terrified.

"I-I know Tommy." An older male voice answered sounding just as desperate. Jack stayed still for hours listening to the two speak to each other in terrorized whispers. She kept thinking that any moment one of them would come in to take one of them for a snack or to toy with. She'd kill them before she let it happen.

"Is she dead?" Tommy asked after awhile. Jack cracked an eye open and glanced at her watch. It read eight a.m. She lifted her head.

"Oh thank God, we thought you were dead." Billie said when she got to her knees.

"Shhh." Jack put her finger to her lips and looked around at her surroundings.

They were in the open space of the barn, locked in wooden cages. She looked around for any other captives but it was just the three of the,. Her heart thudded in her chest so loud she was sure the vampires sleeping in the lofts and the ground close by would hear it.

Jack reached under her pant leg to retrieve the lock picks there. The cages were connected by a single chain with a big padlock securing them. She reached around the outside of her cage and carefully felt around the lock with them till she thought she had a pretty good idea where all the tumblers were. It took three tries and she broke two of her picks but eventually she sprung the lock. Billie clapped his hand over Tommy's mouth through his bars just as he was about to cry out in relief.

"Get out of here as fast as you can and don't look back." Jack hissed at them when she eased open their cages. Tommy flew into Billie's arms.

"What about you?" Billie asked holding his little brother tight. The two followed her as she led them to the small dog door she'd spotted while watching the place.

"I'm fine." Jack said. "Go, get him out of here." Billie hesitated for a moment then he pushed Tommy through the hole.

"Thank you." He said before joining him.

Jack bent to take the buck knife strapped to her calve. It wa long, good for decapitation. She didn't plan on getting to all of them. She didn't plan on living. But she would be damn sure to take as many of them down with her as she cold. Starting with Nathaniel.

She crept into his loft soundlessly, taking the chance to study his face up close. He was good looking, all dark hair and pouty lips, that hid the monster inside. Jack staggered a little as a flashback hit her hard. Chris covered in blood with deathly white skin.

Her lip trembled and she lifted the eight inch blade with both hands and she brought it down with all her strength. He woke with a blood choked roar. He was already dieing looking up at her in shocked hate.

From there it was chaos. She was attacked from all angles. She directed her fire at the entrance, determined to take them with her as she dodged and fought back. She lopped of the woman who'd brought her there's head and took a hard kick to the side of her head from the woman's mate. They couldn't escape from the flames, one was already shrieking and trying to put himself out.. Jack felt her sight start to blur and she crawled low to the ground, away from the fray.

Anger was leaking away, she was convinced she was going to die then. She closed her eyes, ready for it to come when she felt someone pulling at her. She thought it was one of them but then realized she was being pulled out, away from the fire and fury. She tried to fight her rescuer but she was tired and she'd lost a lot of blood.

* * *

When Jack woke up she was in a bed, she had just enough time to see a worried face look down at her before her eyes closed again.

"We were camping." A quiet voice said at her bedside. "Me and my brother and my mom and dad." She opened her eyes a little and turned her head to see the boy, Tommy sitting with his knees to his chest. His eyes were closed, moonlight from the window filtered thought illuminating his light blonde hair. He looked skinny and frail to her, but she thought, she was the one on the bed hard up so she couldn't really talk.

"Where am I?" Jack rasped.

"You're awake." He jumped to his feet startled.

"Where am I?" Jack asked again sitting up. She felt like shit. Her mouth tasted like it too.

"Our house in Birmingham." Tommy answered eagerly.

"How did I-"  
"Billie went back and pulled you out of the barn." Tommy said.

"Why?" Jack asked. She wasn't sure what she should be feeling. She wasn't relieved. She'd wanted to die, she had nothing else now. She'd killed the ones that killed Chris. Yet, there she was, alive.

Tommy didn't seem to know what to make of her question. Of course, he wouldn't, she chastised herself, he was just a boy. Ten or eleven at most.

"We were camping," He started over gain again, "they killed mom and dad in front of us…." He sniffled, "Then-then they took us back there. They had us for weeks and they would drink from us and…"

"And what?" Jack asked. Tears were running down the boy's face.

"And they did other things to my brother. He wouldn't talk about them but I heard him scream when they took him into the other room."

"They're dead now." Jack found herself reassuring him. "I killed them myself."

Tommy nodded, wiping away his tears. The door opened and Billie came in looking surprised to see her sitting up.

"You're up." He said with an open smile. Jack nodded. She looked at him for the first time. He looked like what she imagined Tommy would look like in a few more years. Tall, fair haired with a boyishness to him, nice light brown eyes.

"Tommy, why don't you get to bed? I'm sure that uh-" He looked at her expecting her supply a name. She just blinked at him.

'Um I'm sure our guest wants to rest up." Billie said after the awkward pause.

"But I don't wanna." Tommy whined.

"Tommy please." Billie said with the air of someone not used to giving instructions to someone else. Tommy looked from him to her, she sighed and gave a jerk of her chin. He obeyed immediately, pouting the whole way out.

"You'll have to teach me that." Billie said smiling sadly.

"How long have I been here?" Jack asked him.

"About a week. I asked a doctor neighbor to look at you, no questions asked." He said.

"Thanks." Jack said. Then she ran out of things to say. Billie shuffled from foot to foot for a long minute.

"You're welcome to stay here as long as you want." He said nodding at her then leaving her alone again.

Jack swallowed and looked down at her hands. What now?

She stayed a week then moved on. She never thought she'd see them again.

**TBC………**

**AN: Okay, so I was going to it as one long chapter but just this portion of it took up ten pages, so now its going to be two chapters of back story. Hope y'all enjoy. I'm going to bed.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I own Jack, her history, Chris and other oc's. Everything else is borrowed.**

**THREE YEARS AGO contd.**

She wanted to die. She just didn't have the will to kill herself. Jack wandered aimlessly, stealing for her supper. Everyday was a contradiction. She spent months hunting down the vampire who killed her uncle but she couldn't bring herself to think he was really and irrevocably dead. She was being hunted on all ends, but she couldn't seem to get herself killed.

Jack found herself sitting outside a bar Boston, she was planning on drinking away the soreness in her abdomen where the latest creature feature had slammed her one in the latest round of 'Kill the Psychic'. The bartender, however, took one look at her and her fake id and sent her packing. She was in shady part of town, the best kind, where people barely noticed her feeling through their pockets. It was a slow night though, she had only pulled five dollars in about two days. She slept in a half-finished house up a few streets and she'd barely eaten in three days.

Jack leaned back, one foot against the outside of the bar, killing time before she was so tired she had to go climb into her hovel for the night. He stomach ached, she was dizzy from hunger. At least you aren't cold, she told herself in a hopeless attempt at looking on the bright side. It was well past one in the morning, the streets were mostly empty, except street people and people stumbling home, celebrating t he fact that it was Friday and they didn't have to be in the office or classes the next morning.

Someone's footsteps were coming closer and Jack tensed for a second before telling herself that it was just another drunk. Then they stopped in front of her.

"Hi." Jack looked up to see who'd greeted her. It was an older man in his twenties, wearing a rumpled dress shirt and glasses that hung crookedly over watery blue eyes slightly glazed over. His breath smelled faintly of alcohol.

"What?" She asked folding her arms over her chest.

"You're pretty." The man said sounding a little nervous.

"Gee thanks." Jack rolled her eyes. In her backwards Red Sox cap, baggy jeans and oversized hoodie she'd dressed the part of 'Eric' for the night, hoping some people would leave her the fuck alone.

"I don't so this a lot, man…." He started rambling looking at the ground. Jack grimaced, what now? Wasn't her day going bad enough as it was?  
"H-how much?" His question brought her back to attention.

"How much what?" She asked not comprehending.

"How much to…you know…um" The guy looked around and that's when it dawned on her. She looked up and down the near empty sidewalks, a couple of scantily clad women were scattered here and there down the block and a pretty faced boy was leaning into a passing car grinning seductively at the middle aged man in the driver's side.

This guy thought she was a hooker. A male hooker, no less. Jack thought about hitting him, scoffing and saying he couldn't afford her. Then she felt another bite of pain in her stomach. She was so hungry and tired of sleeping on the hard floor. A few dollars could get her a bed at least and something to tide her over till she found her way to a richer neighborhood to steal from.

'It won't be that bed.' She told herself. 'You'll be able to eat, its a one time thing.'

"Never mind." The man swallowed nervously and made to walk away.

"Fifty bucks." Jack said without thinking. It seemed like a reasonable amount. She wasn't going to actually sleep with him.

"For?" He asked looking excited and wary at the same time.

"Blow job." Jack said off the top of her head(no pun intended).

"Fifty bucks?" He asked looking put upon. Now she really wanted to smack him.

"You don't like it go elsewhere?" She said casually. Most of her really wanted him to do just that.

"How old are you?" He asked her eyeing her up and down.

"Fifteen." Jack said deciding on the truth. She highly doubted he'd try to call DCF on her.

"Alright." He said with a sudden hunger in his eyes that made her sick to her stomach. "My car is-"

"I don't get in people's cars." Jack said firmly, panicking on the inside at what she was about to do.

"There's a bathroom inside." Jack said gesturing towards the bar she was standing against.

"Okay." He repeated. Jack pulled her hood up and led the way with her head down so the bartender wouldn't recognize her and throw her out again.

"What's your name?" Her guy asked in a low voice already thready with desire.

"Eric." She replied. Jack was going over what she knew about sex. Kissing, teasing, she knew all about, she was an expert at that game but things never went far enough with the boys she'd dallied with before, when she was more than just a street kid. Everything else was just theoretical, things she'd read in Cosmo when there was nothing else to read or taken from smutty books she used to snicker at. This was real life.

Her first real sexual experience would be for fifty dollars with a man she didn't know in the dirty bathroom of a seedy bar. Jack put it out of her mind taking the lead when they pushed open the door into the empty men's room. The kiss was dirty and sloppy, all tongue and the taste of liquor. When Jack pulled away he was looking at her dazedly.

"The money." She said holding out her hand stepping back.

"Here." He said fumbling with his wallet and shoving the money at her. Jack eyed the two twenties and the ten and pulled him by shirt to one of the stalls, where she pushed him down on the toilet.

"Do you have a condom?" She asked. He instantly produced one, Jack raised an eyebrow at him and he coughed a little and opened his fly to put it on himself.

She was tentative at first, hesitant in her touches, he seemed to like that, whispering encouragements like he got off on the inexperience. His hand on the back of her head almost made her bite down, but she closed her eyes and blocked it out, she blocked out everything. She went to that numb place she'd retreated to just after her uncle died. When he was done she left him there, breathing raggedly. She walked quickly out of the bar not bothering to hide her face anymore. She had money in her pocket and the taste of latex, booze and sex on her tongue.

* * *

After getting her things from her hideout she found a cheap place that would take cash and checked in for the night. She didn't bother with lines or charms, just went straight into the bathroom and locked the door.

She saw her reflection. Ragged, short hair covered in sweat and her cheeks flushed. Her lips were swollen and wet. Jack started to hyperventilate staring at herself.

Her hand flew to the gun at the small of her back and she put it to the side of her head, her hand shaking as it her finger edged along the trigger.

Jack swallowed the hysterical sob as she lowered the weapon after one of the longest minutes of her life.

"Itisn'tfairitisn'tfairitisn'tfair!" She started mumbling till she was screaming it at her mirror self. Then she was bashing her fist into the glass shouting the words over and over again.

The bright slash of blood from her wrecked fist almost caught her by surprise as much as the pain did.

She sank to the floor holding her hand shaking desperately trying not to lose her mind. Despite the throbbing in her hand she wrapped her arms around her legs and started to rock back and forth humming a song from her youth that Momma Fonty used to sing to her when she had a nightmare.

Never again, she promised herself as she rocked and hummed the lullaby.

Three nights later she was on her knees in an alley. A broken bottle was digging into her pant leg, not quite breaking the fabric but hurting her none the less. The pain gave her something else to think about.

Tonight's mark said his name was 'John'. Not the most original thinker. He grunted and moaned as she worked him slipping her hand into his back pocket to take his wallet. Jack spotted a couple of hundred dollar bills when he dug for the twenty he was willing to shell out for her company. Her hand was wrapped in bandages that would need to be changed when she was done there.

When she got back to her room with the stolen money she didn't have the energy to feel sorry for herself. She just washed her mouth out, took a shower and crawled into bed.

* * *

For months she went on that way, stealing when she cold, hooking when she couldn't sinking faster and deeper into her pain. Things attacked her and she went through the motions of fighting back. She didn't care either way if she lived or died anymore.

Everything narrowed down to getting through one more hour, one more day. She preferred college towns for turning tricks as a girl, younger guys with a bit of money and who were tired of fucking their fist, she always made them wear condoms and paid visits to free clinics to make sure she wasn't sick, always leaving before anyone asked too many questions. She may have miserable but she wasn't stupid. In big cities she'd work as a boy.

It was in one such city that she nearly killed two men. She was standing on a street corner in her rentboy disguise, letting her pretty face peek beneath the hood for the passersby when a guy who looked only a few years older than her stopped in front of her giving a slow smile, that had a predatory hint to it. She gave an answering seductive smile, biting gently on her bottom lip.

"Hey." She said pitching her voice low, looking at him from under the fringe of her eyelashes.

"You free tonight?" He asked invading her space. Jack imagined grabbing the wrist that reached out to stroke her smooth cheek and snapping it.

"Yeah." She said instead.

They were walking towards the back alley of a restaurant, a few feet apart form each other. He was a clean cut all American type boy, with dark brown hair and thin lips. Not the kind you'd expect to see trolling for a body for hire. He gestured for her to walk ahead of him behind the building. Not ten feet forward and she was grabbed from her side. The man slammed her against a wall before she could react and the hand of her client was over her mouth while the other held her arms down against the way. Jack saw her mistake, the second guy was hiding in a doorway she had failed to notice before.

"Told you I'd find something." The first one was saying excitedly. The second looked her over and she glared back at him.

"Nice." He said to the first scumbag approvingly.

He was strong, she couldn't move her arms but they'd left her legs free. Big mistake.

The dark haired one trailed a hand down to her jeans reaching between her legs when she clamped down hard and twisted her hips.

He yelped, his g rip loosening on her mouth enough for her to bite down hard.

"Fucker bit me!" He cried stumbling back. Jack was already kneeing the second guy in the groin. He doubled over letting her hands go.

Jack reached for his head bringing it down on her knee, shattering his nose. The second guy swung at her and she caught his arm kicking him in the stomach so he fell to the floor gasping. Jack looked down at them and something inside her snapped. All the rage she'd buried came back full force. She turned the second attacker over and straddled his hips, reigning down blows on him, seeing every broken thing in her fucked up life. He was whimpering, broken and bleeding. The first was getting to his feet. She snarled and jumped on his back as he was about to escape, pulled out her knife and put it to his throat. Fire exploded close to them, barely controlled. Jack was about to cut his throat when-

The image of her uncle dead on the country road flashed in her mind. His throat torn out. She dropped his head and jumped up staring at the two downed guys. They were human, they were bastards but they were human, she couldn't kill them. She sheathed her knife and ran from the alley all the way back to her motel room, far from where'd she'd been.

It was the last time she ever turned a trick. She knew the next time she would kill someone.

* * *

Then it was a year after and she woke up with the pain howling like a black hole in her chest. It was **That Day.** She could feel it in her bones. A week passed and she was in New Orleans. Skulking around hiding in the dark, Jack would edge around the cemetery, watching Maddy leave flowers on his grave and a couple of other people visit. Everything she did was done carefully. Always watchful. New Orleans was a hotbed for the supernatural.

Jack left to return a couple of months later to pay her respects properly.

The cemetery was dark and empty, shadows everywhere. Jack ran a finger along her mother's headstone.

'What would you think of me?' She wondered silently. The headstone had a photo of her mother above her name. She stared at it trying to find traces of herself in the picture. 'Beloved wife and mother.' Annabelle was an orphan, raised from the age of twelve by Momma Fonty, who'd been a close friend of her parents. She fell in love with Thomas and the two married, she was only twenty two when she had Jack.

"I would have been good." Jack told the picture. "I would have been a good daughter. I always wanted you."

When she was younger she'd imagine what it would have been like if they'd survived the fire that she'd been told of. She tried to visit the remains of their little house once but Chris intercepted her, frantic and made her promise that she would never go there again.

Jack frowned at the memory. That didn't seem right to her. She knew places of tragedy attracted bad things but something about Chris's eyes, wild and fearful, said more than his frantic words that day. Jack was too young to notice back then but now…it didn't sit well with her.

'You're stalling.' She chastised herself. She walked to her father's grave next to her mother's. The photograph of him showed a gentle smile he'd inherited from his mother. He was the more serious of he and his brother, more dutiful. In his life he'd owned part of a restaurant that locals still frequented. Chris told her that Thomas loved Annabelle more than anyone or anything in the world. He must have, he died with her.

"He raised me right. The rest is all my fault, daddy." She said clearing her throat. Next Jack braced herself for Chris.

He was everything to her, mother/father/brother and her best friend. There weren't that many things she could depend on in her world but her was one of them.

Jack couldn't talk. She couldn't do anything but stare at the cold concrete that housed his body.

"Isn't this sweet?" A voice dripping with contempt said. Jack stiffened, turned slowly.

Standing there was a man. Tall, dark and dangerous. Staring a hole in her head.

"You must be Luther." Jack said.

"You killed my brother." He said. Jack saw the shadows move beside. Out from behind a grave another vampire appeared, this one with a nasty burn destroying half his face.

"Its her." He told Luther unnecessarily.

"He killed my uncle." Jack shrugged. "I'd say we're even but I don't feel that way either."

Luther was at her throat a second later. He pinned her to her uncle's grave by her neck. Jack bucked and twisted to no avail. His hand clenched cutting off her air and something amazing happened.

She didn't want to die. For the first time in so long Jack honestly didn't want to be killed. It was like a switch going on in her head.

'So get off your back and fight.' She snarked at herself. Her vision was spotting as she lifted her leg and brought it down on the stone with enough force to trigger knife spring loaded in the tow of her boot. She stabbed blindly getting Luther's abdomen and tearing up before he pulled away.

She rolled off the surface when he slammed his fist into where her head had been, cracking the concrete.

Jack was grabbed from behind, she rolled with it backwards and hooked her blade wielding foot behind BurnBoy's foot, severing his Achilles Tendon. She backhanded him as he let go to clutch at the wound and kicked his head backwards into an angel statue.

"Bitch." Luther appeared before her. His stomach was a gory mess, but he showed no signs of stopping the fight.

'Good.' She thought.

"Daniel Elkin sends his love." Jack smirked. She turned on her heel, running through the maze of graves. She knew the place like the back of her hand. Jack would have shouted in exhilaration if she wasn't trying to escape. She missed this adrenaline rush. Everything till then had been half assed, not really wanting to live but not being able to give up just yet. This, this was different.

Fucked as it was to admit, this was fun.

The fist that smashed into her face when she came around a corner wasn't.

"Oh sonuvabitch" Jack groaned. A pair of cold hands hauled her up and she collided with another headstone. Did they really have to make those things so freakin hard? Jack looked into the face her attacker.

"I'm Kate." The woman smiled wide revealing a row of deadly, sharp teeth.

"I'm Jack. Now go fuck yourself bitch." Jack spat in the woman's face, earning another hit.

"Watch her feet." Luther warned coming towards them. He did not look too happy, Jack noticed.

Just as Kate was about to go in for the kill a flashlight shown on their part of the cemetery. Luther and Kate's attention snapped in the direction of the light and Jack took the opportunity to call fire.

Kate screamed, throwing Jack away from her with a hand that burst into flames. Jack's head hit a corner of a stone and she was down for the count, distantly hearing Luther cursing and then a man exclaiming over, shining a light her face.

When she woke up Jack was in a hospital bed. Her head killed. She groaned and tried to sit up.

"No you don't." A nurse materialized in the doorway. She put down the tray of medical supplies she was carrying, pushing Jack back down into the hospital bed.

"You had a nasty head wound. Ya need to rest." The nurse scolded gently.

"What happened?" Jack asked rubbing her eyes. It was too bright in the room.

"Night watchman found you hurt in a cemetery. You had to get three staples put in your head." The nurse told her.  
"How long?" Jack asked resignedly, she seemed to be losing time a lot lately.

"Two days. I'm surprised you're even awake." She said taking out a little flashlight to shine in her eyes.

Jack batted it away in annoyance.

"Any memory problems?" The nurse asked.

"Don't remember asking for someone to shine a light in my eyes." Jack grumbled. The nurse narrowed her eyes at Jack and grumbled something about kids today being a pain in her ass in French.

"We have you listed as a Jane Doe because you didn't have any ID on you." The nurse told her. "I'll need to know your name, honey."

"Sara Kade." Jack lied.

"Alright Sara how are you feeling?" The nurse asked.

"Head hurts." She said rubbing her forehead.

"I'll up your painkillers. You rest." The nurse said. "The doctor will be in to see you in a minute. We're going to need your contact information too, or we'll have to call social services."

"Thanks." Jack pursed her lips. The nurse adjusted her morphine and left.

"Painkillers rule." Jack said aloud giggling to herself as the painkillers took effect. Then she thought about what the nurse said. It would be when she decided she wanted to live that she ended up getting hauled back into foster care.

No strike that, she thought, it would be when she decided she wanted to live that she ended up being Public Enemy number one with the bloodsucking set.

'Why are things always trying to bite me?' Jack thought. She would have to leave. Soon. They'd figure out it was a fake name fast, then the real fun would start, not. Jack fell asleep shortly after, telling herself she'd leave in the morning.

"Excuse me I was told you had a Jane Doe hear matching the description of a missing child." Jack heard Maddy from down the hall hours later. It was the middle of the night.

'Ah hell.' Jack thought. She reached over and slowly pulled out her I.V. already mourning the loss of the meds. She hopped tentatively off the bed holding the side of the bed till she found her land legs.

Getting out of the hospital was tricky, she had to find her way to an unoccupied part of it then climb out of a window. Luckily she was on the first floor so it was too hard to manage. She ducked behind cars in the parking lot hoping she wouldn't attract anyone's attention in her hospital gown. Once she got to the edge of the parking lot she picked a non descrip car, hot wired, hoping to hell she wouldn't crash and went back to her room.

Jack managed to rally herself to change into a fresh pair of clothes, but dropped off shortly after.

Her dreams were dark, swirling, vague shapes dancing on the edge of her vision. When she opened her eyes, her head was hammering again. This time she had nothing for the pain but a bottle of vodka she bought a few nights before, Money was tight for her now that her only sources of income were pick pocketing and hustling card games and such, but she splurged on the liquor because of where she was headed. Jack carefully measured out enough to get her through the day without being fall down drunk. She had enough of the haze her life had become.

It still hurt it always would, but she didn't want to die. It was a start.

* * *

Jack hopped a Greyhound to Birmingham with the last of her cash. She wasn't sure if they'd even open the door for her but she had nowhere else to go.

When she knocked on the door Billie answered, his natural smile turning to a look of shock when he saw her standing on his doorstep.

"My name is Jack Fontenot." She said, barely able to keep form fidgeting nervously. Billie looked at her for a long moment and opened the door wide for her to enter.

"Billie Parr." He introduced himself in a quiet voice.

Then, to her utter embarrassment, Jack fainted.

"Does that happen to you a lot?" Billie asked when she came to a few minutes later on his couch.

"Head injury." Jack mumbled.

"And booze?" Billie asked tapping the almost empty bottle she'd been self- medicating with. It fell out of her bag in the fall.

"No, mother hening, that's rule number one." Jack said holding up a single digit.

"There are rules now?" Billie asked looking faintly amused.

"Yes." Jack said feeling the urge to stick her tongue out.

"Who are you?" Billie asked.

"I already told you that." Jack groused.

"Jack Fontenot I remember." Billie nodded. "Look, you saved me and my brother from whatever those things were, you're welcome to stay here but I'd like to know some things."

"Vampires." Jack said matter of factly.

"Come again." He blinked.

"The things that had you were vampires." Jack said rubbing her head. "Do you have any Advil?"

"Uh sure." He said frowning. He retreated through a doorway for a few minutes.

Jack took the time alone as an opportunity to look around the room. The house wasn't big, a simple two story wooden place with a porch and was on the edge of the city. Jack reached for the small side table to pick up a picture frame. The photo was of Billie as a teenager and his little brother at five or six with their parents, a nice looking toe headed couple.

"Is water okay?" Billie called from the kitchen.

"Do you have orange juice?" Jack called back remembering her inherently bad manners. She thought she heard a snort of laughter but she could have been mistaken.

"Here." Billie said coming back into the room with a glass of orange juice in one hand and Advil in the other. He smiled at the picture she was holding, she coughed awkwardly and put it back down, taking the pills and juice from him.

"That was a camping trip we took when Tommy was seven." Billie said pointing to the picture.

"How is he?" Jack asked.

"He's doing good. Better anyway." Billie amended. "He had to see someone for awhile because of the nightmares, he wouldn't leave the house for months after it happened, but he's going to school now. He's doing better."

"What about you?" Jack asked downing her pills.

"I'm trying." Billie said looking down at his clasped hands. "Vampires are real."

"Yeah." Jack said though it wasn't a question.

"And you kill them, what? For a living or…?" The poor guy looked at a loss for what to ask her.

"Just those particular guys." Jack said.

"Lucky us." Billie gave a small smile. "What else is real?"

"A lot of bad things." Jack said.

"Werewolves?" Billie asked.

"Yup."

"Ghosts?"

"Uh huh."

"What about-"

"Rule number two is not so many questions."

"That's not fair." Billie protested.

"I know." Jack said biting her lip. "Psychics, witches, voodoo, zombies, demons and a lot of other things that shouldn't exist do."

"What are you?" Billie asked.

"What am I?" Jack repeated dumbly. She stalled by drinking down the rest of her juice.

"Yeah where do you fit in?" Billie asked.

"Nowhere." Jack said mostly to herself.

"Are you hungry?" Billie asked after a beat.

"You just said the magic words." Jack said feeling her stomach jump for joy at the prospect of food.

"I don't know how long I can stay." Jack said over lunch. "I don't like involving kids in my life."

"You're a kid." Billie replied as though that was obvious. Jack sighed and shook her head.

"I think one of the only things that's gotten Tommy through this is you promising you killed the ones that did that to us." Billie told her. "Knowing that those kinds of things are still out there though…it messes with a person.

"They're almost extinct if that helps at all." Jack said.

"Thanks to you?" Billie asked. Jack snorted.

"No thanks to people who are a helluva lot better than me." She explained.

Jack went with Billie to pick his brother up at his middle school, because he asked her to and she didn't have a reason to say no. Tommy's face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw her. It was very disturbing.

The next day she went through her notebook where she had all the charms her family had taught her as a kid until she found the one she was searching for and got her first tattoo on her pelvis bone, a circle of protection.

Jack set up her weapons, taught the boys about salt lines and recuperated. A month into her stay she drove past a mechanics place and saw her.

All black, slightly scratched and completely beautiful in her eyes.

"How much for the bike?" She asked sauntering into the mechanics shop. The owner looked up at her from his work and out at the motorcycle.

"She doesn't work right now." He said dismissively.

"I'll fix her, how much?" Jack asked.

"You know how to fix up a bike?" He asked her skeptically.

"I will." Jack said. She shrugged, she knew her way around a car engine, she was confident she'd learn this too.

"Two grand." The guy said.

"Two grand for a bike that doesn't work." Jack said giving him her "What do you take me for" look.

"How bout fifteen hundred and you'll give me a deal on the parts." She suggested with a smirk.

"And why would I do that?" He asked crossing his arms over his chest.

"Cause I'm gonna work for you." Jack informed him. She needed money and under the table work was scarce, if she could do it this way then she would.

The man laughed. "You're a real piece a'work girl."

"I'll bring seventeen hundred cash tomorrow when I come into work." Jack said not backing down. The man stopped laughing seeing that she was serious.

"Where you stayin?" He asked her.

"Billie Parr's place, you know him?" Jack said sensing a victory.

"Didn't know he was shacking up with someone." The guy said.

"I'm a tenant." Jack said.

"Alright," He pinched his lip between his fingers thinking, "I'll give ya a shot, but I'm expecting Billie to vouch for you."

"He will." Jack said and made to leave.

"What's your name?" The man interrupted at the door.

"Jack." She said.

"Morris Nash." He said.

Jack worked twelve hour days for the next two months, not because she had to, but because she wanted something and when she wanted something she went after it with everything she had. When she wasn't replacing carburetors or putting together engines she was fixing Alice.

The money she got from the ATM card all went to the bike. She had the vague feeling of stupidity at her masochistic behavior during her time on the streets. Her inability to accept realty almost destroyed her. It was still slow going, some days she didn't feel like she could move at all. Then Tommy would knock on her bedroom door, he had a get out of jail free card to come and go as he pleased, with tears in his eyes and she'd reassure him that nothing was going to hurt him as long as she was around. Helping Billie adjust to raising a kid took up a significant amount of time too.

"You have a new tat every time you come in here it seems." Morris said one day when she reached up to retrieve a part, her t-shirt riding up to reveal her growing myriad of ink.

"I like 'em." Jack said defensively but with a smile.

"What's next sleeves?" He asked tossing a dirty rag at her.

"Naw, I like em on my stomach and back." Jack said. She liked that she could hide them easily unless she wanted to show them.

Jack found that she could sense when the vampires were near. When she woke up one night with a dark, heavy feeling in her chest that had nothing to do with grief she shot up and packed her things. Alice was just finished, her paint drying at the shop. Jack almost left without any sin but she turned back at the last minute.

She entered Tommy's room unperceived and left a note saying that she had to go, goodbye and that if they had any problems to call her and she left the new cell phone number she'd gotten on a piece of paper.

She left a similar not for Billie in his room but for him she explained why she had to leave.

Jack still had the spare set of keys to the shop and opened it up to retrieve her bike. She ran a hand over the smooth paint and put the key in the ignition feeling a sense of elation as it roared to life. She locked up the place, left the keys safely hidden before she left.

The vamps caught up with her as she was at the state line and she didn't hesitate to fight as hard and dirty as she could against them, winning her life for another night in the end.

* * *

When Jack stopped in Vinita, Oklahoma she'd only been planning on staying for a couple of days. She went into a used bookstore her second day there and she met Brian. He was taking time off from school after his father died in a car accident and was running his dad's little book shop for the time being.

He was an orphan like her, he was nice and non threatening and sweet to her. If she'd been in her right mind she would have seen right through it, but as it was she still wasn't all there and didn't.

She found herself making excuses to stay a couple more days and then just forgot the pretense of leaving. The first time he kissed her she told him her age, he said if she was old enough to live on her own what did it matter?

He had no qualms about taking her questionable virginity either. She came and went from his house and her room, making acquaintances with some of town folk. As with all things, she fell hard and fast for Brian.

Things fell apart when she told him the truth about herself. It didn't seem that way at first. He seemed to accept what she told him, even became curious about the supernatural aspect of her life. Fascinated by her fire play. The she caught him snooping through her charm book and they had the knock down blow out that ended things.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked in the doorway of her room seeing Brian holding her book and copying down some of the symbols.

"Just looking up some stuff." He said as though it were perfectly okay. It wasn't.

"No." Jack snatched the book from him.

"What are you doing?" He demanded.

"These are dangerous." She said, "You can't be messing with them, baby."

"They can't be that bad." He said with a somewhat condescending tone.

"What's that?" Jack asked spying a symbol she recognized but not from her books. "Do you have any idea what that does? That could hurt people."

Brian narrowed his eyes at her and closed the book he held in his hands.

"I don't need to take this from you." He said getting to his feet.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Jack asked blocking his path.

"That means that a fucking street walker isn't going to pass judgment on me." He said. Jack stepped back as though she'd been slapped.

He put a hand on her to move her forcibly out of his way and she grabbed it and twisted. Then she drew back her free hand and punched him harder than she'd punched any normal person, connecting hard with his jaw.

"Myuckinjw." He moaned in pain on the ground. She was pretty sure she'd broken something.

"You're an asshole." Jack said snatching the notebook he was copying things down in. She flipped through it seeing some risky spells, things she wouldn't even try. She held it up with her finger tips and it burst in flames.

"I'll call an ambulance, then I'm leaving town. Do yourself a favor and don't call me again." Jack said. Even as she was packing some of the fog was starting to clear. Brian had taken advantage of her, she felt stupid and used and too damn young.

* * *

Jack made her way around the states, stopping in Alabama to check on Tommy and stay a couple of days now and then. She read in a newspaper that Elkin was dead and wanted to go see his grave but she couldn't risk anything catching her scent. Instead she drank a shot in his name. She heard from Joseph Black that Luther was on the trail of some hunters that had something he wanted. She had a few days at least of peace, then she heard Luther was dead and laughed her ass off about it for days.

The next time she was in Oklahoma it was to open the safe deposit box her uncle had told her about in his last letter to her. She had no idea what could be inside. The box was in a tiny bank in Oklahoma city, where she showed her key and the number of the box she needed and was left along to look at the contents.

Onside was just an envelope, another letter.

"So fucking dramatic." She chastised her dead relative.

Jack opened it and read the letter:

_Dear Sparks,_

_I really wish I was brave enough to tell you this face to face but I'm not. I know you'll resent me for that and I deserve it. I should have told you this a long time ago but I know you and I know you would have gone after it. I wouldn't have been able to stop out and I didn't want you to die._

_I told you your parents died in a house fire and I lied. I also told you once that my brother would not have been able to handle your ability and although I should never have said that out loud I know its true._

_The night your parents died me and Thomas were closing up the restaurant late and stopped by a bar on the way. Your momma was at home with you at the time. We were on our way back when my watch stopped and a vision hit. It hit harder than anything I'd ever felt before._

_I saw you in your nursery and a man in black standing over you, stroking your cheek, while you cried and fidgeted, then Annabelle came in. _

_"Get away from her!" Annabelle shouted from the doorway. She tried to run to you but he stopped her without even touching her, pinning her to wall. I saw being pinned to the ceiling above your crib, bleeding onto you._

_"Jacqueline." She said before bursting into flames._

_You're father was holding me up when I came back to the present. I felt like I was going to die._

_"The baby." I said and climbed to my feet trying to get up as fast as I could._

_"What? What's wrong with the baby?" Thomas cried out grabbing me by my shoulder._

_"Something's trying to hurt the baby." I told him. We took off getting into the truck as fast as we could. _

_We were to late, I could feel it as soon as we pulled up to the house. I could hear you crying from the truck._

_"Annabelle! Jackie!" Thomas yelled as he ran inside with me on his heels._

_We froze in the doorway. The man in black turned to face us, his face obscured in shadows, I felt him look right at me and I felt the evil on him. Then he was gone and your father was running inside._

_He grabbed a chair from the corner and climbed up trying to get Annabelle down._

_"Tom the baby. We have to get the baby its too late for Annabelle." I said. The fire started and Tom was still trying, he wouldn't let go. He loved your mother too much. I had a choice, pull him down, or get you out._

_I grabbed you out of the crib and looked over my shoulder as my brother went up in flames with his wife. I ran out of the house as the fire exploded through the rest of the house. You were crying and I was crying and everything was wrong in the world._

_I never regretted making the choice I made. Now, though I've been having more visions, its going to come for you again, baby girl. It wants you and others like you. I didn't want to tell you about this because I knew you'd go after the thing that killed them and so many others, but now I know there's no choice. It wants you. It can't have you though._

_Chris._

Jack slid to the floor of the bank room holding the letter in her hand.

'Its never going to end.' She thought pinching her nose to keep from crying. It was never going to stop, the constant attacks, even with her tattoos and her power growing stronger. It felt like she was born to die. That old despair crept up on her. Just a day before she'd been cornered by a poltergeist that wanted her ability to takes its revenge on its killers. She shot him with rock salt and burned his corpse. Now she found out something bigger and worse was out to get her.

Inside the envelope were clippings of similar fires her uncle had collected over the years. Only one stood out to her for some reason.

The family was named Winchester, she knew she'd heard that name before. Jack set a course for Lawrence, Kansas a couple days later.

**Thus endeth the Flashback……**

**AN: We're back to the present in the next chapter my lovelies. I told you this would be a long ass stroll down memory lane. Two days, two damn days it took me to write this chapter. I'm so tired. I was especially nervous about these past two chapters because of how dark they'd have to be, I thought to myself if you can make yourself well up with these then you're doing something right. And I did so hopefully I did the same for y'all. That sounds vaguely sadistic doesn't it. Aw, well. hehe**

**Reward me with reviews please, I need the love.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: No, I only own my obsessive nature that doesn't let me take a break from writing.**

Sam swallowed hard. No one spoke or moved as Jack finished her story. She threw him for a loop, half the time Jack with held or only vaguely mentioned her past, now she' d been relentless about the details. He'd wanted to shut his ears out to the words at times. He reached a hand out to wipe away the moisture on his cheeks.

"I'm gonna kill him." Dean said going for the door. That snapped Jack and out of the lull and they both moved to stop him.

"You can't kill him." Jack said. She knew he'd do it too, or at least come close.

"Why the hell not?" Dean demanded, glowering at the door that stood between him and his intended victim.

"He's human." Sam reminded him. He didn't sound very convincing to himself either.

"Dean, please." Jack said looking down at her feet. Dean looked back at the door practically glaring a hole through it and mumbled a gruff 'okay' under his breath.

Dean walked to the farthest wall of the room, leaning against it with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Solemn and angry.

"Boston?" Sam asked aloud, he wondered how hard it would be to find someone in a city that big.

Jack shot him a look and went back to sit on the edge of her bed.

"Jack, I know you don't want to hear this." Sam said from where he stood watching her. "Its not your fault."

Jack clenched her fists, that's what He said when she first came clean.

"You were taken advantage of." Sam tried again to get some kind of reaction from her.

"Jack say something Damnit!" Sam yelled when the silence unnerved him too much. Dean and Jack looked at him, surprised at the outburst.

"Sam I made a bunch of stupid choices, there aren't excuses." Jack said.

"There are. Its simple, you were a kid, they took advantage. There's a reason that shits illegal." Dean exclaimed. "Age of consent and all that crap."

"Old enough to kill things and old enough to die." Jack said with paper thin nonchalance.

"You don't believe that shit either, so don't even start." Sam snapped.

"I don't expect empathy, I don't expect anything." Jack said with her old I-don't-care-I'll-manage-on-my-own exterior. Too bad her voice cracked as she said it. She looked up from the stained motel room carpet and her eyes had a hint of fear and distrust in them. It hurt Dean to see that directed at him and Sam. He had to fix this somehow.

"Jack, its okay." Dean said slowly. He pushed off the wall and came up behind Jack on her bed, wrapping his arms around her shoulders in a completely uncharacteristic show of affection. He held on till she stopped tensing and leaned back against him while he tried to tell her without words that it was alright.

Sam gawked at the scene. Dean was not the touchy-feely type. His form of a hug was a punch to the arm and tossing t he keys to you.

"Come to our room for a bit." Dean said, knowing this was not the time to let Jack be alone to withdraw inside herself. Jack nodded.

Hours had passed while she told her sordid story. It was so late that they were all exhausted. Jack walked between Sam and Dean into their room caught in her own thoughts.

Once inside Dean went straight to the bathroom for several minutes. Dean locked the door and sat on the toilet seat with his head in his hands equal parts angry and torn up inside. Fucking pedophile bastards, he kill them if he ever met up with any of them. He wondered how hard it would be to track down and bait one of the 'Johns' that had laid a hand on Jack, Sam would help if he hadn't mistaken the look in his eyes, especially when she got to the two that tried to-fuck it was better not go there. When Dean was able to compose himself he splashed cold water on his face and ran the towel roughly over his face.

Jack sat down at the table with Sam taking a seat next to her. He smiled a little trying to keep the hint of sadness out of his expression and failing miserably. Jack noticed a little redness to his eyes.

"You okay Sam?" She asked. Her throat hurt a little from talking so much, she needed something to drink.

Sam looked at her incredulous. She wanted to know if He was okay? After the story she just told them?

"I-I'm fine." He said.

"Here." Dean said coming from the bathroom with a paper cup filled with tap water. Jack drank it gratefully.

"Sam Raimi marathon on Scifi tonight." He said winking at her.

"Army of Darkness?" Sam asked.

"Of course." Dean said. He grabbed the remote and turned on the t.v.

Sam got up and flopped down on his bed and Jack pulled her chair to position it between the two beds so she could watch the movies.

Somewhere between "This is my boom stick…" and "Klatu, Verata, Niktu" Dean looked over and saw Jack had fallen asleep in her chair.

"Sam." Dean whispered across the room so she wouldn't wake up. Sam looked over, saw Jack sleeping and nodded. He got out of his bed, picked Jack up and placed her on the bed. She didn't stir.

"Just stay on your side of the bed dude and don't kick me with your Gigantor feet." Dean said scooting over to give Sam room.

"Ass." Sam said kicking off his sneakers and sitting back on Dean's bed.

"Bitch." Dean retorted.

"Hey, Dean?" Sam asked a few seconds later.

"Yeah?" Dean said taking his eyes off the t.v. to glance at Sam.

"Its going to be okay right?" Sam asked. Dean looked at him considering the question.

"Yeah, Sammy. Its going to be okay." Dean said.

* * *

"Please, please let me go." The young girl whimpered. Her hands were tied down to the chair and she was already bloody from head to tow.

He watched her with his eyes narrowed. In the light of single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling he saw the differences much more clearly than at the dark, little bus stop he'd picked found the girl hitching outside of. Another backpacker, on a break form school she'd said. Prime target. But no, in this light he saw too much of the differences. Her hair was too dark, much too brown, her skin had was tanned from days in the sun and now it was all dirty and caked with fried blood from the days he'd had her captive.

The thing that pissed him most though were the eyes. They looked right back there, he could have sworn they were right. No, they were hazelly green though, a hint of brown and even that wasn't the right brown. They weren't eyes that looked the color of dark, warmed over bourbon. Not the eyes of the person who should be in that chair.

"Please." She sobbed. "I won't tell anyone. I promise just please. I want to go home."

"I'm sorry but you can't." He said sympathetically. "You're going to help me."

"I don't want to fucking help you, you psycho!" She screeched between her choked weeping.

He reached for the machete hanging on a hook at his worktable. She looked at him with wide eyes, breathing in short gasps, shaking her head. Her eyes were wide with terror, she convulsed in horrified shivers.

He lifted his arm back and brought it down, decapitating her with a single swing. He wiped the blood off his face in mild annoyance, then picked up the severed head of the young woman. He reached for his duffel bag and stuffed inside with the other supplies for the ritual. He hadn't been planning on killing her early, but the ritual would work even if it was a bit rushed. He didn't want to wait another month to finish it, couldn't anyway with the cops snooping around and people finding his bodies. He had his fifth victim all picked out already.

He hummed a song to himself as he left the cabin to trek through the darkened woods. He didn't need a flashlight, his night vision was already getting better. A couple more days and it would complete. He'd be new.

* * *

When Sam woke up he glanced at the bed Jack had occupied to find it empty. He jumped up and shook his brother hard.

"Dude what?" Dean opened his eyes to glare at Sam for waking him from that great dream he'd been having about Angelina Jolie and-

"Jack's not here." Sam said. Dean looked at the empty bed and rolled out of bed with a sigh. Damage control time.

They walked into Jack's room without knocking. She was taking the runes off the windows and nudging aside the salt lines with her foot, cleaning house.

"What are you doing? I don't think the case is done." Dean said pursing his lips. It was too fucking early for this shit.

"Jack is this about last night?" Dean asked. Sam shot him an obvious look that Dean chose to ignore. Sam took a seat on Jack's bed, waiting for her to talk.

"You gonna talk, Sparks." Dean asked.

"I think I talked enough." Jack said.

"I don't." Dean replied.

"So now you know," Jack said after a beat of silence. "I'm fucked up. I tried to do the sharing is caring bit, but it scared him too much."

"You're not fucked up." Dean said with a quiet intensity.

"Yeah, I am Dean. I make you guys seem normal and well adjusted." Jack said bitterly. She crossed the room to where her things were and started to shove her clothes and weapons inside the bag.

"What are you doing?" Sam demanded jumping up from his perch on her bed. He'd been silent till then, studying the floor intently.

"Isn't it obvious, College Boy?" She sneered.

"Your not going anywhere." Sam said. Dean nodded in agreement and plucked the bag from her grasp.

"Don't you get it, Jack?" He demanded tossing the bag forcefully across the room.

"We're not going to reject for that shit. We're not going to leave you." Dean said shaking her by her shoulders. A stray tear made its way down Jack's cheek as she looked at him and Sam with a mixture of fear and hope.

"Your family." Sam said. Dean let go of her and stepped away, giving her enough room to slink past them and out the door if she chose to.

"I don't know…I didn't…" She broke off with a lump in her throat.

"We know Jackie Girl." Dean said. Sam gave her a reassuring smile.

"I don't know how you can want me here." She whispered in resignation and they knew she wasn't going to leave them.

Sam walked forward and enveloped her in a hug before she could pull away. Jack stiffened but let herself sink into her friend's warmth, letting herself believe that this wasn't how they'd part ways.

She pulled away and put on a ghost of usual cocky smirk.

"What are you gonna ask to braid my hair next Francis?" She asked rolling her eyes at him. He laughed and swatted her upside the head.

"Smartass." Dean said putting an arm around her in a half hug. He let go after a quick squeeze.

"Now lets find this thing and kill it." Dean said and like that things were okay.

Broken but alright, because they'd stared down the barrel of the gun and hadn't looked away.

**TBC…..**

**AN: Okay, we're back in the present and things are going to get very interesting soon (even more so). Bad guys to stop and torture to get to and all that. Hope y'all enjoy.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural but I do own…hold on a second I'm thinking…**

"Dean, I got something on those symbols." Sam said after hours of scouring the internet for anything resembling the symbols on the corpses.

"Finally." Dean said putting aside the crime scene he and Jack were scrutinizing. He walked from the bed to stand behind Sam at the table.

"You can do the research next time then." Sam glowered at him. He was not in the mood, staring at a computer for hours on end looking for a needle in a haystack and all he got was a 'finally'?

"Don't get your panties in a twist." Dean said. "What did ya find?"

"Its used in an ancient transmutation ritual." Sam said sitting back in his chair so Dean could see the page.

"Transmutation? Like shape shifting?" Jack asked joining them.

"Sort of, think less animalistic and more demonic." Sam said.

Dean's phone rang and he stepped back to answer it.

"Why the full moon?" Jack asked filling Dean's place behind Sam.

"Throughout history lunar cycles have been seen as symbols of death and rebirth. Here it's like the death of the practitioners human side and the birth of something more." Sam explained.

"Hey, Bobby." Dean said into the phone when he read the caller i.d.

"Hey, I got the skinny on the symbols in the pictures you sent me." Bobby started.

"Transmutation, we know." Dean interrupted.

"Why the hell'd you ask me if you already knew?" Bobby said mildly.

"Didn't know it before we asked you." Dean said.

"Alright," Bobby said, then he chuckled into the phone. "Do me a favor and tell your brother something for me."

"What?" Dean asked.

"Tell me he's got a great singing voice." Bobby said snickering. Dean yelped a surprised laugh which he covered up with a cough.

"I'll, uh, tell him." Dean said fighting for composure before he hung up.

"What?" Sam asked with a raised eyebrow. Dean gave him an innocent smile.

"Nothing." He said. Jack narrowed her eyes at him.

"I didn't do anything." Dean said catching the look.

"Do you believe your own bull shit?" She drawled.

"Sometimes." He replied with a shit eating smile.

"If that was what I think it was you're dead on so many levels." Jack said dead serious. Him and that damn camcorder.

"Do I want to know?" Sam asked looking between t hem confused.

"No." Jack said patting his shoulder sympathetically. She turned her attention back to the webpage.

"Does it say anything about exactly what our killer is trying to turn himself into?" She asked Sam.

"Yeah, it should." Sam said and started scrolling down.

"That does not look good." He said. Dean looked at the rendering on the page and groaned.

"Wonderful." He said pursing his lips. "See, this is why I say people are crazy. What sane person would want to turn into that?" He pointed at the screen. 'That' was a cross between a hell hound and a person, like Sasquach on evil steroids, only not as pretty.

"Look at it this way, once crazy turns into this you'll understand him a lot better." Jack said furrowing her brow.

"No way is this son of a bitch getting that far." Dean said.

Just then they heard the sirens.

"That's never good for us." Sam said looking towards the door.

"Lets go see." Dean said putting on his jacket.

They caught up to the sounds of sirens in the car, following the police to the edge of the woods, where there was an ambulance and several other cop cars waiting. Sitting in the ambulance was a man and a woman dressed in running clothes, the woman crying while a cop took down their statement.

"This isn't right." Jack said.

"Maybe it was something separate." Dean said though he didn't believe his words any more than they did.

"But the full moon's not for another day." Sam said.

"Come on." Dean said popping open t he glove compartment to get the badge he'd used the other day and the ones he'd made up for Sam and Jack.

"We're going to the crime scene?" Sam asked looking a t Dean like he was crazy.

"Yeah, keep your head down Jack, don't need them asking any questions about us." Dean said tossing her badge to her. She nodded and popped the collar of her leather jacket to obscure a bit more of her face.

After Dean stepped out of the car the first person he saw was Officer Bradley and he made a beeline for the man with Sam and Jack in tow.

"Officer Bradley." Dean said approaching the man. "What have we got here?"

"Oh Detective Morgan, you came just in time, I was going to call you but you didn't leave a number to reach you at. I was just going to call your offices." Officer Bradley told him. He looked at Sam and Jack standing unobtrusively behind Dean.

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that." Dean said thankful for their good timing. "These are my colleagues, Stephen's and Klein."

"Pleased to meet you." He said, his eyes lingering for a second on Jack frowning.

"Did they find another body?" Dean asked him.

"A severed head." Bradley said giving Dean his full attention again.

"Male or female?" Sam asked.

"Female." He said. "We're going to run her description through missing persons and see what comes up."

"All the victims have been hikers or hitchers so far, right?" Sam asked.

"Yes sir." Bradley answered.

"She probably won't be reported missing yet then." Sam pointed out.

"Yeah but we have to follow protocol." Bradley said shrugging.

"Can we see the crime scene?" Jack asked, looking towards the direction that people were bustling back and forth from.

"Sure, follow me." Bradley said.

He glanced at Jack as he led them into the wooded area.

"Help you with something?" She asked.

"Sorry, but aren't you a little young to be a detective?" He asked.

"Botox." Jack said. Bradley looked like he wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not. She smiled when she heard Sam mutter 'smartass' under his breath.

"How far in did you find the body?" Dean asked.

"Its pretty deep inside, about two miles." Bradley said.

The closer they got the more people they saw. Cops, a guy taking crime scene photos and a crime scene tech putting the severed in a bag. Dean didn't like there being this many people around, too much opportunity to fuck up and get caught in a lie.

"Listen," He said stepping in front of Officer Bradley to stop him. "I'd prefer to keep a low profile here, don't want to get that interoffice rivalry thing going. So why don't you just stow the intro's for now."

"They'll want to know why three strangers are poking around the crime scene." Officer Bradley said sounding unsure.

"Let me worry about that." Dean said giving a confident smile, like he told cops what to d o every day. He wished, he still got a kick out of it when one of them called him 'Sir'.

"Alright." Officer Bradley said biting his lower lip, clearly uncertain of this course of action.

Dean patted him on the shoulder and walked ahead of him to edge around the small piece of woods they had taped off.

"More blood on the ground." Sam murmured as they circled the area with watchful eyes.

"Did you get a look at the head. The sever was rougher too, fast. Not neat like the last two." Jack said nodding towards the man holding the bag carrying the head.

"Not as rough as the first either though." Dean pointed out. "And the smell is fresher, incense."

"We need to mark where this is and come back tonight." Sam said looking around trees that looked much the same all around.

"Well, we're about three miles North of where the last body was found, they're all the same distance apart from each other." Dean said, he chewed the inside of his mouth while he figured the coordinates the way his dad taught him to.

"You got a pen and paper, Geek Boy?" He asked Sam.

"I failed to bring them, jerk." Sam said sarcastically.

"I thought you were a boy scout." Dean said jokingly.

"Write it on your hand." Jack said handing him a chewed up pen from her pocket.

* * *

They waited till midnight to return to the woods, armed to the teeth. The next night was the full moon and it looked like their gut was hurrying his ritual up, probably because of the bodies turning up. They were all upset about another person dieing while they were in town, all eager to put the hurtin on this mother fucker.

"I'm going to beat this guy worse then I beat you in Tucson." Jack muttered glaring at the spot of the brutal ritual.

"Hey, you didn't beat me, you beat the demon. Now way I'd go down like that." Dean said defensively.

"My ass, we beat the piss out of you Dean, admit it." Sam said.

"Shut up." Dean said. Jack and Sam traded looks behind his back.

"When we get back we should see if there's any property here in the woods, something at the center of all this." Jack said.

"Nothing was on the map." Dean said.

"Still, we should." She said. She couldn't shake this feeling in her stomach, that something was wrong. She knew these woods, there were old places that no one lived in anymore, but she couldn't for the life of her remember where.

They panned out and started looking over the ground with their flashlights, looking for something the killer might have left behind. If he was rushing he might get sloppy, was the logical thought. They were so intent on their individual searches that they didn't notice moving further and further away from each other. Dean looked up frequently but as long as he saw the lights from Sam or Jack's flashlights he assumed they were alright.

* * *

Sam had a bad feeling in his gut, something telling him to turn back and go home. The feeling was nagging at him, distracting him from his search. Finally he gave up and started in the direction of the nearest light, ready to tell Dean and Jack that this was all wrong and hoping they took his word for it.

* * *

Jack felt like she was being watched, at first she dismissed it, but soon she was certain of it. She took the gun from her jacket silently and thumbed off the safety. She kept her outward calm but studied the woods from under her eyelashes.

There, she thought as a shadow moved almost invisibly. She straightened a little and turned off her flashlight, immediately falling back behind a tree she'd been standing in front of. She watched, muscles tense.

"Boo." The whisper came from behind her and she spun squeezing the trigger once before her head was hit with something hard and heavy. Her vision went white from the impact for a second and then everything went black.

* * *

"Sam! Jack!" Dean shouted when he heard the shot. He saw one light hurrying towards him and he ran to it.

"Dean! Jack! Dean where are you guys?" Sam was shouting.

'"Sammy." Dean caught up with him, they had their guns drawn and were looking behind each other for trouble.

"Did you fire that shot?" Dean asked tensely.

"No, have you seen Jack?" Sam asked. Dean shook his head getting more and more pissed by the second.

"I've got a really bad feeling Dean." Sam said looking worried.

"Vision?" Dean asked.

"No." Sam answered.

"Shot came from over there." Dean said pointing his flashlight on the opposite direction they were standing in. "Let's go."

"Stay by me." Dean told him. He wasn't losing track of anyone else tonight.

"If this guy's got Jack.." Sam started swallowing down the dread that continued to grow.

"Then he just signed his death warrant." Dean finished shining the flashlight in Sam's face till his brother nodded.

**TBC……….**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural, if I did the boys would be all mine to do with what I please.**

Jack came to slowly feeling a throbbing in her head and a burning stiffness in her neck from leaning her head forward against her chest for so long while she was out. She lifted her head lethargically, mentally assessing herself for a concussion. She tried to move her hand up to check for a blood or a bump. That was when she discovered her hands were tied down. She blinked the blurriness away and looked down at herself. She was tied, hands and feet to a wooden chair. Her jacket and long sleeve shirt had been stripped off, leaving her in white wife beater. Her socks and shoes were gone as well.

She struggled against them as hard as she could but they were secure, whoever did this was a pro. She looked around her. She was in a room, barely illuminated by a naked light bulb hanging from the rafters of what looked like a dilapidated cabin. Jack's eyes fixed on the work table across the room. Candles burnt down to the nub and unlit were melted onto the table, her guns sat in the center and blood in different stages of drying coated it. In fact the whole place stank of blood, making her feel like gagging. Hanging from tool hooks above the table were all manner of knives, small-like scalpels, and large- like the menacing machete that was sticky and glistening red.

She'd found their killer, or rather he found her.

A door opened behind her but Jack couldn't turn her head enough to see who stepped in. Male, she guessed from the space of the footsteps, somewhat tall, lean though, they weren't that heavy. Then he came into the light with a maniacal smile on his otherwise calm face.

"Brian." Jack hissed in shock.

"Hey baby." He said cutting her across the face with the pocket knife he'd taken from her jacket. Jack jerked sideways but still managed to take most of the edge to her cheek. She felt the sting of the blood start to flow down it.

"Bastard!" She screamed at him struggling against her bindings again. She only succeeded in knocking herself sideways onto the floor.

"Don't do that." Brian said in a too calm voice like he was talking to a disobedient child. He reached down and pulled her upright.

"Don't touch me." She said as he ran a finger down her jaw line.

"You're not really in any position to give orders, Jack." He said cupping her cheek roughly to make her look at him, She spit in his face.

Brian calmly wiped the spittle off his face and punched her hard. Harder than he should have been able to hit.

"Why? Why are you doing this you sick sonuvabitch?" Jack demanded. She couldn't believe it. This man was the monster they'd been searching for. He'd murdered and dismembered people in cold blood.

"My ritual. To be more" He said like it was the most obvious conclusion in the world.

"That last girl, I brought her here because I thought she kinda looked like you." He was saying as he turned away from her to go to his table. He picked a her gun up and pointed at her.

"You know, for nostalgia. But it was all wrong. Her eyes, her hair. Beggars can't be choosers though." He said conversationally. Jack struggled anew as he walked to her and put the gun to the side of her head.

"Then you came back to town and it was so perfect." He said. She could see the madness there now. It was in the way his eyes glittered while he pushed the gun against her temple and slid it down leaving a rough, red line in its wake. Suddenly he pulled the trigger and Jack felt her heart stop for a second, but nothing happened.

"No, not so soon, my love." He said laughing at her fear.

"Fuck you." She said hating him more than anything in the world at that moment.

"Maybe I will." He said in a low voice, he trailed the gun downward over the curve of her breast to the edge of her shirt, using the muzzle to lift it.

"Those really are beautiful, hurt like a bitch when I was carrying you but still beautiful" He said running his free hand over her tattoos. Jack's skin crawled when he touched her.

She decided she'd had enough and turned her focus inside to all her fire. Nothing happened. She tried again. And again. She couldn't feel it.

"Nope I found a spell to bind that little power of yours. Its temporary but it'll hold for now." Brian said close to her ear. He laid a kiss to the pulse point on her throat. "I never understood you, you have this ability from birth and you do nothing with it, you even complained about it." He said against her neck with the gun shoved against her abdomen.

'Fuck. He's insane.' She thought.

* * *

"Sonuvabitch." Dean hissed.

"What now?" Sam asked. The search wasn't going well. Other than the smell of gun powder and a large piece of wood that had blood on it, there was no trace of Jack or whoever took her.

"We're going in circles." Dean said.

"How can you tell?" Sam asked shining his flashlight around him. Everything did look the same there.

"I tied my bandana to a tree last time we were here." Dean said shining his light on a stick holding the piece of fabric.

"Damnit." Sam said.

"We don't know these good enough to search them at night." Dean growled in frustration.

"How did the bastard get away so fast? How'd he take Jack by surprise?" Sam asked for at least the fifth time that hour.

"For the last time I don't know. And I really don't fucking know." Dean said. He sighed in angry resignation. "I think we have to pick this up tomorrow."

"What!" Sam gaped at Dean. "We can't leave her with some nut job who slices people up for fun, Dean."  
"Think I don't know that? We're no use to her lost like this though." Dean retorted. "If we come back tomorrow we'll see better, we'll have the map and we can find out if there's any place for someone to keep a victim."

"You think he's keeping them for a few days first?" Sam asked, the thought giving him hope that they still had time.

"Yeah, guys like that, they like to play with the people first." Dean said hatefully.

"Torture." Sam said quietly. He looked at the ground for a long moment. "Come on, I think I can find old property records on the computer, see if anything comes up."

Dean nodded and they made their way through the pitch black woods, carefully picking their way and keeping a close eye on each other and the surrounding forest. Neither man talked on the car ride to the room and once inside Sam threw himself into trying to find information about the forest while Dean made mark ups on the map of approximately where Jack was when she went missing.

Hours of searching brought Sam no closer to finding anything useful and Dean couldn't stop staring at the crime scene pictures. Sam finally looked up at the crack of dawn and took the pictures from Dean gently but firmly. He shook his head, they couldn't psych themselves out by looking at them. Dean met his eyes and nodded in understanding. They went through the motions of getting ready to sleep so they'd be fresh in a few hours to begin the search again but Sam couldn't close his eyes without seeing severed limbs and Jack looking so earnest and vulnerable the day before. He was filled with a rage so sudden and powerful it shocked him. Dean kept getting flashes of her memories in his mind, only now he could piece together the how's and why's of things that didn't make sense to him when he first saw them and still didn't. He rubbed his forehead and clenched one hand around the knife under his pillow, itching for somewhere to put it, or someone to put it in actually.

"We'll get her back." Sam said from his bed as the early morning sun bled through the thin motel room curtains. "And kill the bastard that took her."

* * *

"I gotta say, I was a little jealous when I saw you with those two guys." Brian said walking away from her to his table again. Jack tried not to be relieved that he wasn't touching her anymore, it wouldn't last.

He lit a match, picked up a scalpel from his collection and heated the razor sharp edge till it was blackened.

"Not in the mood to talk anymore?" He frowned. Jack stared straight ahead showing no reaction.

"That's okay, I can talk for both of us." He shrugged and blew out the match. Brian made his way to her humming 'Bad Moon Rising' under his breath, she remembered she'd turned him on to the classics. The sing was sickeningly appropriate.

"I wondered which one you were fucking, or if it was both." He said pressing the flat side of the hot blade to her hand, letting it brand her. Jack swallowed and didn't let any outward display of pain show.

He sighed at her lack of response and muttered "stubborn" under his breath. He started humming, turning the blade over to the sharp side and sliced into her hand carving a symbol from the knuckle of her middle finger to her wrist. Jack's breathing sped up, she bit the inside of her mouth to keep from yelping in pain.

He watched her seeming disappointed in the lack of affect he was having. He walked away and tossed the bloody scalpel onto the table.

He looked back at her considering then chose a longer hunting knife with serrated edge and came back to her. Brian straddled her legs and put the blade to her throat. Jack hated having him this close, she hated the knowledge that he could do what he pleased with her, while she was tied up. She had flashbacks of the alley, with the two men and held on to the thought that she'd gotten out of bad situations before, she'd do it again. Her ability was not a crutch. It was hard to keep these thoughts with him so close to her body. Brian cut a line down her shirt till the front was cut clean in two. He ran the knife from the base of her throat to her bellow button and back again.

"Your going to play pretty Jack or I'll bring other people here and make you watch me work on them first." He said in a raspy voice.

"What the fuck do you want?" She demanded.

"I want to hear you beg." He said simply. He pushed the edge of the blade into the indentation at her throat just enough to let a trickle of blood flow down. He bent to lap it up and Jack bit into his ear as hard as she could.

"Bitch!" He screamed jerking back and away from her. He threw the knife down, and punched her so hard in her stomach she saw spots. He hit her again and again, till Jack's head hung limply and blood was coming from her nose and lip.

"Is that all you got?" She asked grinning at him with her bloody teeth bared.

He lifted his fist again and stopped breathing hard looking at her with hard, dangerous eyes. He went back to retrieve his knife from the floor. He kicked her chair over so her head hit the wooden floor with a hard thud. Jack couldn't see what he was doing but she felt him begin to cut a shape into her foot. She slammed her eyes shut and tried to keep it all inside. She heard an animalistic sound, taking a second to realize it was coming from her.

**TBC………**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I own nothing Supernatural.**

The day started off bad for Sam and Dean and got steadily worse as time went on.

"Fuck!" Sam awoke to Dean yelling the word so loud it echoed dully in the parking lot.

Sam sat up in bed and shot out of bed as soon as his sleep fog cleared and he remembered the night before. He stood up and ran across the motel room pulling open the door and getting a blast of cold air in return. Dean was kicking a post and yelling a litany of curses.

"Its fucking snowing Sam!" Dean said turning to look at him with his arms spread wide to encompass the snowfall.

"I can see that." Sam said filling with dread. It wasn't snowing at the moment but sometime during the morning when they finally fell asleep it had. That meant if the mother fucker who took Jack had left any tracks the snow had covered them.

Dean shoved past Sam to get back inside. Sam stood there for a second his hand clenched on the doorknob before slamming it hard enough to make the windows shake.

"I agree." Dean said with a mirthless smirk.

"We can still look for property records." Sam said in a determined tone.

"Yeah." Dean ran a hand through his short hair and started to put on an extra layer of shirting. His movements were jerky and distracted, like he has to concentrate hard just to get these little mendacities of normalcy.

Not that Sam noticed, he was too busy coaching himself not to forget anything in the rush to get the hell out there. Finally they were in the car speeding towards the town.

* * *

"Do you have any idea how many nerve endings are in someone's feet?" Brian asked tipping the chair back upright.

He'd left her there overnight with her feet bleeding and her on the floor. She wouldn't let herself sleep, refusing to be caught off guard by him when he came again. He cupped her cheek to make her look at him and she glared at him making a thousand silent promises of what she would do to him when she got out of that chair, if she got out of that chair. She wouldn't let herself think about that last part thought. It was kind of a downer. Jack laughed out loud, a hysterical pain wrenched wound that hurt her ears. You're going to die but a least you still have your sense of humor, she told herself.

Brian looked at her in confusion, like she was the crazy person in the room. Jack had no plan of action, she just knew she couldn't let him finish the ritual. The only idea she had was to goad him into making a mistake. It might by her some time and she didn't think he would get so angry he killed her too soon. The symbols had to be cut into her skin in a certain order, a certain way, she couldn't be dead before they were finished, that she remembered from Sam.

Sam, she thought, closing her eyes, Dean. They would be looking for her. They wouldn't know Brian was dangerous, no one would think in a million years that a guy who ran a used bookstore in a small town would be a serial killer. If they went to his home….

Jack shook her head, they were smarter than that. No way would the two of them walk into a trap.

* * *

Dean left Sam and the car outside the library and walked down the street to the Police station. He wanted to have a talk with his old buddy Officer Bradley. Luckily, Dean saw that Bradley was just stepping out the front doors when got close to the building. He thought about turning back when Bradley fixed him with a glare that could melt glass but he decided to take his chances anyway.

"You got a lot of nerve coming back here." Bradley said to him when he approached him quickly.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I had a few questions about the woods and whether-"

"We just got a call from the state police." Bradley said cutting him off mid sentence. Dean shut his mouth and fought not to curse out loud.

He really didn't fucking need this right now.

"That so?" He asked playing it cool.

"Yeah, that's so." Bradley said through gritted teeth.

"How are things back at the home stretch?" Dean asked.

"Busy." Bradley answered with disturbing calm, that way that let you know you were shit creek with the cops. "So busy in fact that they regret not being able to spare anyone just now. But they'll be sending a guy up here in about a week."

'Shit.' Dean thought.

"Alright that's it, put your hands on your head." Officer Bradley said, motioning for Dean to turn around.

Not fucking likely. Dean thought about hitting him. Hell, he'd been itching to hit something for the last two or three days. Taking one look at the irate cop, he decided to take a gamble on the truth, or a version of the truth anyway.

Before the cop could react Dean had him by his jacket collar and was pulling him to t he side of the building, where they'd be more or less safe from prying eyes. He pushed the man against the wall, covering his mouth with his hand.

"Listen to me. Listen. To. Me." Dean said as the man struggled against him, but Dean had pent up anger and a healthy dose of adrenaline on his side. No contest.

"Yes I lied to you. No I'm not a cop. But that's not important." Dean said in a low voice.

"My friend, the woman that was with me yesterday is missing. She was snatched in the woods, by where the other body was found." Dean said. Something in his voice, or maybe the words themselves made Officer Bradley go still. Dean took a chance and removed his hand from the other man's mouth.

"How do I know that's true?" He asked skeptically.

"Please, he'll kill her." Dean said his voice going rough. He couldn't help but remember how close it came with Sam when he was taken by the Benders. You got him back though, you got Sammy back and you'll get Jack back too Dean reminded himself.

The cop read the desperation in the face of the young man in, he saw the flicker of fear in his eyes, there only for a second but palpable in its terror. He closed his eyes and opened them again. Dean knew in that moment that he would help him.

"How far from the crimes scene?" Bradley asked closing his eyes.

"Not far, a few hundred yards, we got separated and it was dark." Dean explained.

"This needs to be off the books, officer. Before you ask I can't tell you why I was looking into the murders, you can arrest me later if you want but I need to get my friend back first." Dean said easing up on Bradley so he wasn't pinned to the building behind him.

"You expect me to help you conduct an illegal investigation and you refuse to tell me why you and your friends were here in the first place." Bradley looked at him incredibly.

"Yes sir." Dean said. He saw a moments hesitation in Bradley and he pulled out his trump card.

"She's my family." Dean said pulling out a picture Missouri had snapped months ago of Jack, Sam and Dean on the porch just sitting around and bull shitting. She'd surprised the three of them by taking it, then shoved a copy of it in Dean's hand before they went on the road again.

Bradley studied the picture, biting his lip in consternation. In it Jack still had her leg in a cast and was sitting between Sam and Dean on the porch steps while Sam was leaning forward doodling something in marker on the white plaster with the others watching him draw.

"I could get fired for this." Bradley said.

"You won't, trust me just answer a few questions and you never have to see any of us again." Dean promised.

"Is this some vigilante thing?" He asked Dean.

"No, sir. Its more like we're private investigators." Dean lied with a quick shake of his head. It might've been like that before, just a job to do but now…..now this shit was personal.

"Can you come with me right now" Dean asked him.

"Where?" Bradley asked cautiously.

'To my evil lair.' Dean thought.

"To the library, my brother is there waiting for me." Dean said.

"The man who was with you the other day?" Bradley inquired.

"Yeah." Dean said pulling him by the sleeve around the corner, looking this way and that. He noticed, triumphantly, that the cop wasn't fighting him as he pulled him down the street away from the station.

Sam's eyes widened when he saw Dean towing the cop, still in uniform, what the hell was Dean thinking, towards his table in the very back of the library.

"We're made. Luckily, this gentleman's gonna help us out anyway." Dean said shortly pushing Officer Bradley into a chair.

Sam nodded at the man in greeting and sent a look at Dean, silently asking if he'd gone insane. Dean just gave a tight smile and Sam shook it off. They had more important things to worry about.

"Okay, first we need to know if there are any old properties out there that might not be included in recent maps of the area." Dean said sitting backwards in a chair, resting his chin on the seat back.

"A bunch of old cabins, I haven't had a chance to look through the records yet." Sam said indicating at the stack of papers in front of him at the table.

"Good thing we have a local then." Dean said turning his attention to the Bradley who was looking around him nervously.

"Sam the map." Dean said without breaking eye contact with the other man.

Sam brought out the map of the woods that was marked with the location of each body.

"What's there?" Sam asked pointing his finger to a spot on the map that they calculated was the center of the whole mess.

"There?" Bradley sat forward to study the map. His brows furrowed as he thought about the question.

"Yeah. Cabins, sheds, dilapidated houses, anything in that area that someone might use as a hideaway." Dean said.

"Its been awhile but I know there's a couple of old hunting cabins up there that no one's used in years. Two or three a couple miles apart. It would take days to comb through and find them." Officer Bradley said.

"Just give us a rough area to look." Sam said encouragingly. For the cops it might take days, but they didn't have to worry about being on the clock or following some protocol. Anyway they didn't have days, the full moon began that night.

"Do you know how to write out coordinates?" Dean asked him, digging out a pen and handing it to him.

"No." Bradley said sounding genuinely regretful that he didn't.

"Its fine, just circle the approximate areas." Sam said. He nodded a t Sam and looked carefully over the map. He finally made three small circles that, according to scale were about two-two and half miles from each other. The general size of the areas they'd have to search were about a half mile a piece.

"When we-" Bradley began but Dean cut him off.

"We aren't going anywhere. You are going to go back to your office and pretend like nothing happened." Dean put all the authority he had into his voice.

"I don't think so." Bradley exclaimed.

"Listen, we're grateful for your help but this isn't the kind of thing you want to be involved in." Sam said. Dean nodded in agreement pointing to Sam.

"Vigilantism-"

"We aren't vigilantes, we're just trying to get our sister back." Sam said quietly but firmly.

"Why were you here in the first place?" Bradley demanded.

"Told you, we can't tell you that." Dean said.

"I won't let you go in there alone." Bradley said setting his jaw stubbornly.

Dean looked at Sam who looked back at him. He shrugged at Sam and let his eyes flicker towards the back entrance, hidden by the stacks. Sam gave an imperceptible nod.

"Alright." Sam said in resignation to Officer Bradley. The cop looked at the two of them suspiciously before nodding slowly in agreement with whatever had been decided.

"I gotta use the bathroom." Dean said getting to his feet. He gave a thank you nod to the cop and made his way towards the bathroom, ducking behind the children's books section when he was sure Bradley wasn't looking.

He doubled back and made it to the back door leaving it open a crap on his way out for Sam.

Sam waited thirty seconds, thirty long seconds, before starting to gather the papers and books spread over the table. He folded the map and put it in his backpack, nodding at Bradley before getting up under the pretext of returning the books he'd been looking through.

Ten minutes later he was meeting Dean in the back of the library.

"Dud what took you so long?" Dean hissed as they snuck around the side to where the car was parked.

"I couldn't look suspicious." Sam retorted.

"Got the map?" Dean asked.

"Of course." Sam said affronted.

"Sorry, just want to get going." Dean apologized opening the drivers side door.

"Me too." Sam replied.

**TBC…..**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but my over active imagination that keeps getting me in trouble when I should be paying attention to shit. Oh well.**

"You know he'll follow us right." Sam stated when they parked the car at the edge of the woods they'd been searching before.

"Yeah, but he won't find us." Dean said confidently. He got out of the car, circling around the back to open the trunk. He and Sam loaded their guns with silver bullets, grabbed some flashlights and whatever other weapons they could think of. Dean nodded to Sam and closed the trunk.

Sam pulled out the map, pointed to one of the circles on the map, "This is closest to where we are now."

"Probably least likely place too, if the guy's smart he won't hide so close to where he dumped the bodies." Dean said.

"True, but we can't afford to skip anything." Sam said.

"Can't afford to waste time either." Dean mumbled more to himself than to Sam. Sam heard it anyway.

They'd lost valuable time due to their late start and having to evade any cops. This weighed heavily on both men. The sun was already setting and neither wanted to bring up the fact that they had no way of knowing which night of the full moon this monster liked to dispose of his victims on.

The snow covered ground lent an eerie calm to the woods. In the light everything looked too pristine to be home to such sinister things. As the sun dipped lower though, it looked like a dead zone. Even the animals were silent. The area they headed to was over grown, the trail was hard to make out. Dean moved ahead of Sam when they approached the wooden dwelling that was little more than a shed, rotting away where it stood.

They took positions on either side of the front door and Dean started a count of three on his fingers.

* * *

Jack shook with the cold, the only warmth was from the fresh wounds Brian kept inflicting on her. He' made it very clear that this was something special just for her. He'd worked the other victims over good, but he was taking his time with Jack. She distanced herself form the pain and thought instead of what the boys were doing. She had no concept of time in the cabin, there were no windows there. Brian had left her alone again, without explanation. She was dazed with hunger, lack of sleep and blood loss she tried wriggle loose from her restraints anyway. She almost managed to get one of her rams loose when she heard footsteps, deadened by the snow but real, she was sure of it.

Jack went very waiting for the door to open.

* * *

Dean kicked the door off its hinges., walking in cautiously with his guns pointed in front of him, Sam covering him back to back as the surveyed the dilapidated room. It was empty. No big surprise, Dean was pissed at the waste of time.

Jack could be…….the killer could be- Dean thought of the question he should have asked Officer Bradley. He couldn't bring himself to ask it back then and he kept thinking that he really should have.

They moved on to the next spot, very much aware that they'd just wasted another two hours chasing the dead end lead. Now the full moon was shining brightly overhead.

* * *

"Miss me?" Brian walked into the cabin carrying a plastic bag which he set on the table and came forward to inspect her. That was when he saw her left hand was halfway out of its bond.

He grabbed her by the chin and glared at her. "Don't. Do. That." He punctuated each word by tightening his grip so hard it would bruise. He let her go and untied her hand and twisted it hard behind her back, tying it tighter than before and did the same with the other hand. He didn't give her enough time to take advantage of the opportunity.

While he was behind her Brian tore away the tattered remains of Jack's shirt. She flinched when he ran a hand up the back of her arm, the way she always liked to be touched. Now it made her stomach turn.

He came around her front and knelt in front of her.

Jack looked him in the eye and spoke around her busted mouth. "I am going to kill you." She closed her eyes as he reached back to launch his fist into her stomach. Her mouth filled with bile, her body wanted to give in and let her eyes close. Everything hurt. But Jack refused to let go.

* * *

They were a mile from the next circle on the map when they heard voices and saw flashlights. They turned off their and Sam quickly ducked behind one tree while Dean crouched low using a rock as cover. Scattered scraps of a whispered conversation made its way to their ears.

"This where they found-"

"I heard it just a head and-"

"Lets go this place gives me the-"

'Fucking teenagers.' Dean thought. He got to his feet and walked stealthily to where the kids were walking from, Sam following him.

"Hey!" Sam barked stepping into their flashlight range. The kids, a guy and a girl, jumped and the boy looked like he was about to piss himself.

"Are you two aware that there is an ongoing investigation of this area?" Sam said in his best ball buster voice. Dean always said it brought back memories of getting arrested in high school, or last week for that matter.

"You could be contaminating evidence just by being here." Dean chimed in turning on his flashlight and shining it in their faces.

"And I believe there's a town wide curfew in effect." Sam said hands on his hips. Any other day and Dean would have been laughing his ass off at the looks on the kids' faces.

"We-we" The boy was stuttering something out.

"We'll leave, just please don't arrest us." The girl asserted. The boy nodded along enthusiastically.

"We'll cut you a break this time but you need to get out of here and get home. Right. Now." Dean ordered them. They nodded looking intensely relieved and turned to go.

"Do you think its safe to let them walk through these woods alone, especially tonight?" Sam asked watching them go.

Dean wanted to say yes, he wanted to turn away from the little bastards and keep towards the second place on the map. He didn't. The memory of his last fuck up with not making sure a kid got home was still too close to the surface for him. Damn demon.

"I hate this town." Dean huffed turning off his light and walking in the direction the kids had retreated in to make sure they got safely back to wherever they were going.

They followed at a discreet distance till they got to a break in the trees a half mile from where they'd spotted them and watched the teenagers get into their car and drive away.

"There, I think we can assume they're safe now." Dean said walking swiftly back through the trees with his flashlight on.

"Wasting another twenty minutes on some dumb kids…" Dean mumbled. Sam walked behind him silently agreeing and wondering if it would be considered bad to track down the two kids if Jack ended-

'Don't even think that.' Sam told himself forcefully.

He looked up at the moon, back at his brother, set his jaw firmly and pulled out the map so they could find the trail again.

Dean stopped mid-step and dug around in his pockets. Sam turned and sent him a questioning look that Dean ignored. He finally found the book of matches, wondering why he hadn't thought of it sooner.

Realization dawned on Sam when Dean struck up a match letting it burn down to his fingertips, staring straight into the fire till it he had to frop it to the snowy floor.

* * *

Jack couldn't use her abilities anymore but she could still feel the intangible aspects of it. She felt the match strike and saw the brief reflection of Dean's face in her mind's eye. She saw the grim expression and the hint of desperation as he looked into the fire.

He was telling her he was near. That he and Sam were on their way. True she couldn't discern how far they were, but just knowing gave her some fresh hope.

And dread. Brian knew these woods better than them, better than her. He looked at her oddly where he stood and she thought for a second he could read her thoughts. He smiled that damn smile again and reached out snatching the choker from around her neck.

He knew they were coming. Somehow he knew it too.

* * *

The second place was a bust and Sam let his temper get the better of him and threw the lone piece of furniture, a broken down three legged table across the room through a window.

"You done?" Dean asked with understanding. He was just sorry he hadn't gotten to it first.

Sam mumbled an affirmative.

Dean and Sam searched till dawn and couldn't find the third dwelling. The kept going, despite hunger and exhaustion all through the morning and afternoon. Their old friend Officer Bradley showed with his cop buddies and dogs and they had to duck out and lay low. The search party finally gave up as early evening broke. Another day missing.

Sam sat on a rock waiting for the last of the cops to retreat with his head in his hands. Following t he search teams seemed like a good idea at the time, but the dogs didn't pick up anything. Something about t he incense used in the rituals, Sam surmised. Their guy was smart.

* * *

Inside the closet Jack sang to herself, lullabies, nursery rhymes from her youth, songs she heard everyday in the car. Anything to keep her mind off of her surrounding. She'd panic if she let it set in. She never should have told Brian this about herself, she'd been too trusting. Even Sam and Dean didn't know this phobia.

"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick…" As she tried to force her hands out of their bonds in vain. "Jack jump over the candle stick…" Her voice cracked as her wrist twisted painfully and she couldn't get it back the way it was.

When she ran out of songs she talked to herself, telling herself old stories and jokes. Soon it disintegrated into nonsense. She sounded crazy even to herself. She counted out the seconds, the long unending seconds. When she counted past two hours she tried to move one of her legs and she couldn't feel it.

That was when the terror started to set in. She threw her weight backwards into the wall and forward again, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs. Pain is good, she told herself, aloud or silently she didn't know. Pain means you're still here.

Jack held onto that when she started to feel dizzy with fear and began hallucinating. She thought she felt the dark choke down from her blacked out eyes to her nose and mouth, slowly devouring her taking the air from her lungs. She swore she felt something or a thousand somethings crawling up and down her body, trailing blood to what little untarnished flesh she had left. She could taste the air, stagnant and rotting, taste the ice on it and the fear of everyone who'd been in this room before her. She tasted it like starbursts of crimson on her tongue She knew she was loosing it when she 'saw' charms and symbols melting off the body she wasn't sure she had anymore. Jack started crying, the salt burning the cuts on her face, mingling with the joy of finding she still had one and the knowledge that she was drifting in and out of lucidity.

* * *

"This is taking too long." Dean said after another of their marathon stretches of silence.

"I know." Sam replied rubbing his forehead. He'd give anything for a vision right then. He felt like he was on the verge of something since night had fallen, like there was something watching them from the shadows, waiting.

"He's watching us Dean." Sam said stepping closer to his brother hoping t hat he wouldn't be overheard.

"Are you sure?" Dean asked. The back of his neck was prickling like someone was staring a hole in his head.

"Yeah." Sam said. He let his flashlight rove over the area while Dean scanned the ground. He didn't know what he was looking for just that he'd know when he found it.

Then he did.

"Sammy!" Dean growled bending low to the ground to scoop up the shining piece of metal that was nearly invisible. He held the light to the object. The medallion's and the leather band were half covered in sticky blood, half the engraved word indiscernible till Dean ran his thumb over it to wipe away the red.

'Veritas' it read Dean clenched his fist tight around the necklace.

"Sam!" Dean tried again when Sam didn't respond.

He heard a crack in the trees to his side and aimed his flashlight and gun towards the sound. He walked slowly forward.

"Sam?" He asked. He barely caught the movement but he crouched low just in time dodge the attack. Wood cracking a against wood and splintering. Den rolled away focused on the near invisible shadow and fired a shot.

"Dean!" Sam yelled a few feet in the other direction.

"Sam stay back!" Dean yelled back.

"Where the hell is Jack?" Dean asked the person he knew was somewhere near him.

"We're going to find where she is sooner or later, freak show." Dean said. "You picked the wrong fucking girl to snatch."

He wasn't getting any response. He knew the guy could hear him. Dean made a snap decision, one he would have killed Sam or Jack for making. He three his gun to the ground, his flashlight next to it and stood slowly with his hands in the air. Surrendering. Sam was close enough that he would see the action. Dean hoped he got the point of it not try not try anything stupid. He needed Sam be able to follow the trail of the killer and get him and Jack out.

Dean braced himself when he saw the hit coming, pocketing the necklace fast so he wouldn't lose it in the snow. Next thing he was on the ground, his head aching and being picked up by his attacker.

Sam stayed behind a tree watching his brother give himself up. He was fighting the urge to run forward and protect Dean, then throttle him for this cock eyed, half thought out plan. He heard the sickening crack of something heavy colliding with Dean's skull then the rustle and drag of Dean being picked up. He gritted his teeth. This guy had Jack, he was right in shooting range. All it would take is a couple of well aimed shots, get Dean back…….but then he might not find Jack.

Sam waiting thirty seconds and followed them. On his way he told himself that if Dean ever made comment about his and Jack's plan to get him back from the demon in Tucson at least he'd have ammo against him now.

**TBC……………………**

**AN: This had nothing to do with the story but….. AHHH! 4 hours and 59 minutes till Supernatural Premiere. Yes I'm counting down the hours, shut up, I know I'm obsessed and I've made peace with that. I am, as always a feedback whore, so indulge me darlins.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I own nothing from Supernatural, if I did some things would have gone down differently. Don't worry no spoilers here.**

Dean woke up midway while being carried through the door to a cabin. He kept his body lax till he was dumped hard on the ground. Didn't move an inch or crack an eye when his captor moved away from him for the space of ten seconds, ample time to get the better of whoever this was, or at least get a look at the guy, but he didn't. Dean listened hard, filtering through sounds and the buzzing in his own head to pick up on any tell tale sounds.

He heard nothing and then his hands were being fastened behind him. Dean's eyes shot open and he attempted to roll away from the killer. The barrel of a gun was put to the back of his head too fast to be natural. Dean cursed under his breath and stood still.

"Stand up."

Dean froze and blinked, "Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me." He turned his head slightly but the barrel stopped him from turning enough to confirm what his ears just told him.

"You know actually this is a good thing. I wanted to kill ya, now I have an excuse." Dean said letting himself be hustled to his feet. He came face to face with Jack's ex and smirked. "Not that I would've needed one."

"Funny. Is that what she saw in you, your sense of humor?" Brian asked in a cool voice.

"Yeah. Nice shiner by the way." Dean said. Brian's lip curled and he pointed the gun under Dean's chin. He jerked his chin towards the center of the room, forcing Dean backwards.

"If you try to get away I'll-" Brian started.

"You'll what? Kill me?" Dean scoffed. "I've faced worse than you before coffee in the morning kid. This isn't the minors you're playing in."

Brian didn't speak, he circled around Dean and untied his arms with one hadn't while the other kept him at gunpoint.

"Hands in front." He ordered in a short, clipped tone. Dean did as he said, staying still as his hands were bound in front of him with some strong rope. Brian tossed the long end over a beam in the ceiling.

To Dean's surprise and annoyance the bastard hoisted him up so he was barely standing on his tiptoes and tied the other end to a worktable in the corner. Someone had their Wheaties, Dean thought.

Where are you Sammy? Dean thought looking around him. The room was dingy and cold, over his shoulder he saw there was what Dean could only describe as a sociopaths fun wall and several of the knives spread over the table were coated in blood. Dean fixated on those knives. The blood was fresh. Not even frosted over from the cold.

"Your question earlier over whether I was going to kill if you didn't obey me." Brian finally spoke again walking around to Dean's front. He stayed far enough away that if Dean wanted to lash out with his legs he couldn't.

"The answer is no. Oh, I plan on killing you, don't doubt that, but if you don't obey me…" Brian trailed off and walked three feet from where'd he'd already been standing to a door directly behind him. A door Dean had failed to notice before. It looked to be a closet or something.

Dean struggled and fought when the door was opened and he saw what was inside.

"You bastard! You mother fucker! I'll kill you!" Dean raged. Jack was blindfolded and bound to a chair. She was covered in bleeding lacerations and bruises, from what little he could see in the poor lighting. She wasn't wearing anything but torn jeans and a bra that's strap was torn and hanging heavy with her blood across her chest.

He hadn't heard before, the room must have been soundproof, but now he could here incoherent muttering coming from her, punctuated by whimpers and what sounded like humming.

"She's been singing and talking to herself for hours." Brian said fondly stroking a finger down her cheek, across her jaw line and then down to her collarbone.

"Don't you touch her!" Dean screamed at him. He looked above him at the beam, wondering if he could force it loose by swinging his full weight back and forth.

"If you don't listen to me, I'll hurt her, in ways you can't imagine and I'll make you watch every second of it." Brian threatened.

"Dean?" A faint voice asked. Jack lifted her head from where it had been tucked against her chest.

"Jack! I'm here, don't worry, I'm here now." Dean said rapidly to assure her.

If anything it made her panic more.

"Gone crazy, making me hear things...what I want to see…." She mumbled to herself in a cracked voice that alternately made Dean want to grab hold of her and hold on till she believed that she hadn't lost her mind and reach out and kill Brian slowly and painfully with his bare hands. He promised himself he'd do both soon.

"No Jackie, I'm right here. I'm right here." Dean shouted raggedly.

"She's claustrophobic, did you know that?" Brian asked weaving his hands through her hair and jerking her head upward exposing her throat. Jack fought weakly against the hard grip.

"Yeah I did." Dean lied through his teeth. Brian grinned at him with such a malicious twinkle in his hard eyes that Dean was suddenly afraid what he'd do. Dean was at least fifteen feet from him and Brian was pressed so close to Jack that he could cut her throat or shoot her with the gun(_her_ fucking gun) in his hand. Instead he pressed a kiss to her throat and let go of her.

"I'll kill you." Jack said suddenly with raw clarity and hatred. "If you hurt them I will make you beg for death."

'That's m'girl.' Dean thought proudly, hearing that deadly gravel rough voice coming from Jack.

Brian responded by slamming the door closed again.

"Now for the other one, Sam, right?" Brian said walking across the room. "I'm not an idiot, I'm well aware that he followed us here or tried to anyway. I know these woods better than anyone. What do you want to bet I find him before he finds me?"

He was out the door before Dean could tell him what he'd do to him if he touched Sam.

"Jack." Dean called out working to keep his voice level. "Jack can you hear me?" Dean mentally kicked himself a second later. How the hell would he hear her if she said yes?

Two days. She'd been stuck in this cabin being beaten and tortured for two days. Why didn't she burn the place to the ground? Did he threaten to hurt him and Sam if she did? It was the only reason he could think of for her deciding not to use them. Maybe it was survival, if she burned the cabin around her, tied to a chair, what was the guarantee she'd get out alive?

"Jack don't worry, Sammy's coming, he's going to get us out of this shit." Dean said. His fingers were starting to feel numb.

He bit his lip and looked up at the rope and the beam. If he could lift himself up he could get to the knife up his sleeve. He'd have to getting a sure grip and the rope first to pull himself up. Dean looked down at floor scanning for any kind of leverage, even the smallest thing. He sees instead a bloody molar almost directly under his left foot, next to a puddle of blood.

"Gonna kill that bastard." Dean said to himself for the umpteenth time. Best thing was, the dude didn't count as human anymore. He wouldn't have to be but it was always better when the thing terrorizing small town America was a monster, made things less complicated.

Enough procrastinating he chided himself(Damn he was starting to think in those foofy Sam words now). Dean tore his eyes from the tooth and stretched his arm muscles as much as he could, then wrapped his left hand around the rope little by little and pulled himself up. Dean strained and groaned, trying not to swing his legs and throw himself off balance.

* * *

Dean's here. Dean is right out there, a few feet away and Sam is coming. Jack held on to Dean's words for dear life. When she first heard him she didn't believe her ears, she thought she'd lost her mind or that it was another part of Brian's twisted game. But listening to him she started to believe he was there. Brian wouldn't know the nuances of Dean's voice. And no one but him and Billie ever called her 'Jackie'.

When Brian closed the door on her again she started to feel the cold panic overtake her again. She beat it back, listening to Dean assure her, tell her that he was right out there and asking if Jack could hear him. That clinched it that it was Dean and not a figment of her overtired, stressed brain. Only Dean would ask if someone in a soundproof space could hear him. Jack took deep breaths, tried to stay calm, tried to keep in control if her emotions.

She heard a loud thud and Dean cursing up a storm in the next room. Jack tensed automatically when she his hard, rapid footsteps made their way across the room.

* * *

Dean pocketed his knife and rubbed his back where he collided with the floor on his way down. He got up stiffly, practically running the short distance to the closet door. Grasping the doorknob Dean coached himself to be carefully with her once he got her free. She was scared, hurt badly and disoriented. Spent fuck knows how long inside a makeshift sensory deprivation chamber. He closed his eyes and opened it.

Dean choked back a gasp. Jack looked even worse up close. Brian had cut symbols into her skin, anything that wasn't bloody was bruised. Her rip cage had the imprint of a fist in it and the skin was misshapen along the ridges, something was broken in there. Dean knelt down in front of Jack's chair, composing himself before doing anything else.

Although blindfolded she could sense him reaching for her because she flinched back from his hand.

"Its okay, its just me." Dean said softly, leaving his hand where it was in front of her face. She was breathing hard through her mouth, blood dripping from the inside.

"I'm going to take the blindfold off so you can see me." Dean said. He waited for what sounded like an affirmative mumble from her to reach behind her head to untie the cloth. Jack blinked, wincing at the sudden light after hours of darkness Dean smoothed down her hair and stayed absolutely still while her eyes adjusted enough to focus on him. The whole right side of her face was black and blue, puckered at the jaw where he guessed she'd lost her tooth and that eye was almost completely closed over.

"Hey." Jack whispered when she saw him. "Have a nice fall?" Dean laughed, swallowing back the emotion there.

"You don't know how happy I am to see you." Dean told Jack. He grabbed the arms of the chair and slowly pulled her out of the closet so he'd have enough room to cut her bindings. Jack's left hand was twisted at an odd angle in the ropes, like she'd tried to free herself but it only did more harm than good.

Dean took out his knife, slipping it carefully under the rope and sawing through. He didn't know how much time they had. Jack needed a doctor badly and the soon-to-be-dead bastard Brian could come back at any moment. He felt along her wrist, gently applying pressure there. It didn't feel like it was broken but it was badly sprained.

"I didn't know you were claustrophobic." Dean said, coming back around to start on freeing her feet. He didn't expect any answer, he just wanted to say something to keep them both clear headed.

"Embarrassed? I hated telling Sammy I didn't like to fly. Kid still won't let me live that down." Dean forced a self deprecating laugh. Her feet were all cut up too. None of symbol carvings were too deep, but they bled like a mother fucker and looked painful.

"I'm gonna pick you up now Jack." Dean said tossing the bits of rope aside. Jack cradled her left hand close to her chest, nodded weakly at him.

"Careful." He said more o himself than her when he slid his arm under her knees and the other under her head so he could lift her out of the chair. Jack hissed at the movements, slamming her eyes closed. She started humming to herself again. Dean bit into his lip trying not crush her with his hold on her body. He recognized the song and started singing the words softly, staying on the ground till she adjusted to not being bound down.

When Dean felt her breathing even out a little bit he got to his feet adjusting his arms so she'd fit comfortably against his chest. He walked to the work table, not missing how Jack started to tremble when he neared it, and plucked an unused knife from the wall.

"Dean, wait." Jack said suddenly when they were at the door. Though he hated to leave through such an insecure point, there was no other exit.

"We'll be out in a second, Jack." Dean said.

"We can't." Jack said forcefully. He paused and looked down at her. Jack stared back at him seriously.

"If we leave now, he'll snatch someone else and finish the ritual." Jack said. It had only just occurred to her. He'd do just that, not caring who he destroyed and when he changed he'd come gunning after her and the boys as his new self.

"I'm finding it a little hard to care about that now." Dean barked without meaning to.

"Have to kill him before we go to the hospital." Jack said closing her eyes.

"Oh I plan on doing that, but you need a doctor first." Dean argued. "Maybe if you burnt the place down he wouldn't be able to finish the ritual." He suggested.

"Can't, prick put a binding spell on me." Jack answered remorsefully.

"You got nothing you need to feel sorry about Jack. It isn't your fault he did that." Dean said following her line of thinking. "We have to get out of here, Jack. I don't want anyone else dragged into this either, but I'd rather feel bad about that than have you die on us."

"Not gonna die Deano." Jack smiled weakly. "Promise."

"I'll remember that." Dean replied. He opened the cabin door cautiously.

"Why did he leave you there?" Jack asked changing the subject.

"I think its what you said to him. Think its the same reason he put that spell on you and trussed you up like that." Dean said.

'Why's that?" Jack asked cracking her eyes open to look at him.

"Cause he's afraid of you." Dean answered with a razor blade smile that made him look about the most dangerous she'd ever seen him.

Dean poked his head out the door first, looking through the snow and shadows for any movement.

"Dean?" Sam's urgent whisper cut through the air.

"Sam." Dean called out low with a rush of relief. Sam's head peaked around the side of the cabin.

Sam slipped out of his hiding place when he saw Dean looking out the door. Dean waited till Sam was there to open the door more, revealing Jack in his arms. Sam gaped at the condition she was in and rushed to shuck his jacket and lay it carefully over her.

"God, what the hell did he do to you?" Sam asked moving a piece of hair off of Jack's swollen eye.

"We need to get her to a doctor." Dean said.

"He went in that direction, I was watching him from behind the cabin." Sam said pointing straight ahead of them.

"Tell me you know some way out of this place besides that way." Dean said,

Sam nodded, leading the way around the back. He kept in front of Dean and Jack feeling every protective urge in him go on high alert. Sam led to the path he discovered when he was waiting for Brian to disappear into the forest. He had no doubt that this was a trap, lulling him into a false sense of security.

Sam had Dean's guns tucked into the band of his jeans, was ready to fire his own at the first sign of trouble. He hoped with everything that he had that Brian popped out of the shadows at them. He wanted to empty all four rounds in the guy and then go to work on him. Sam's teeth were grinding at the thought of what he'd like to do to the man. Fury and concern for Jack warred with each other.

People he cared about were always getting hurt. It always stunned him when it happened though. There wasn't any getting used to it. He didn't get shocked by dead bodies, monsters, the blood of strangers. But he would never get used to seeing Dean hurting or Jack bleeding. He'd never get used to seeing the people he was closest to in pain. It wasn't something that made any logical sense to him, that such strong people wouldn't be unbreakable.

**TBC……  
**

**AN: Showdown in the next chapter and the obligatory angsty fluff of the heroes taking care of their own. Who else got all weepy when they saw In My Time Of Dieing? I'm heartbroken people. Give me reviews to cheer me up!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: No ownership to be found here, just obsession :p.**

Two sets of footsteps in the snow. He followed them sniffing at the air. The iron in her blood, the faint scent of fire that she always carried with her. And them. Brian snarled. He contented himself with the knowledge that all three would be dead in due time. As soon as they reached the ritual site.

* * *

Jack dozed in and out of consciousness as they traipsed through the trees. She'd be lulled to sleep by Dean's steady footsteps and the sounds of Sam breathing a foot in front of her. All she had to do was reach out and she could touch his arm or back. It hurt to much so she let the thought soothe her. She'd be falling blissfully into a restless sleep and then….

"Yeah, baby…. fuck…..you little slut you like this don't you…" And she'd jerk awake again feeling the ghost of gravel under her knees and sweaty hands in her hair. Only to be shushed by Dean and have Sam's jacket pulled tighter over her so she wouldn't feel the chill of the air quite so much. The black would claim her again for seconds before….

"I love this. That someone as powerful and beautiful as can't move or fight back." Brian whispering it in her ear.

Those times she'd wake snarling like a wild animal fighting against its cage.

"We're getting there Jackie, its okay." Sam would stop them to tell her.

* * *

Dean tried not squeeze her too tight, she felt so fragile he thought she'd break. He kept one eye on their surroundings, making sure nothing jumped out at them and the other on Jack. She slept with her eyes open and sometimes they'd go wide with fright and others with a kind of loathing that was staggering in its intensity.

Images flashed in his mind. Blood and pain, mingling till he didn't know which were her thoughts and which were his. Confusing, frustrating and a relief because he felt that if he could see it then when they were away from here and Jack had to fight off these demons he could take some of the pain onto his own shoulders.

* * *

Sam's sharp ears picked up the crunch of boots on snow and he turned sharply to the right to avoid it. He slowed his gait to be closer to Jack and Dean as the three broke through the tree line to a small open space in the woods. Sam's heart sped up and he looked around him wondering why. His throat closed up with rage.

Standing not thirty yards from them was Brian holding a long machete in one hand and Jack's gun in the other. Behind him the ritual site, which they'd only been in time to see the remains of in the days before. Bastard must have been suicidal or stupid to think of taking them on now Sam thought. Brian gave a ghost of a smile and his grip tightened on the knife handle. Sam silently held one of the guns behind him for Dean to take. Retrieving the gun, Dean's hand hesitated on Sam's telling him to be careful. Sam gave an imperceptible nod.

Sam felt for the six inch blade on his thigh. The machete was a monster of a weapon, but Sam knew knives better than any other weapon. He could take this mother fucker.

"She's so pretty when she cries." Brian said. Sam lost it and launched himself at the man.

Jack tried to squirm out of Dean's grip but he stopped her, tightening his hold enough to force her to be still

"Put me down and go help Sam." Jack told him.

"I'm not putting you down." Dean ground out, period, end of story. He watched Sam and Brian face each other, wanting terribly to join the fight.

Sam barely dodged the long sweep of the machete in time. It caught his sleeve letting the cold air through to the skin. He barely felt it, countering the move with a low jab to Brian's stomach that didn't connect. Sam hurried to twist around so he wouldn't give Brian his back even for a second, he was that fast. Sam bent his knees and watched the cold blooded killer, saw a spot of blood on the shoulder of Brian's long sleeved shirt. He fixated on that one spot. He aimed low again with his blade trying to get to the spot in the man's side that would bleed out fast. Brian moved just out of reach, crouched and swung the machete catching the inside of Sam's shin. Sam pulled back firing a shot at Brian's shoulder. It didn't slow him down much.

The ritual too far along, he'd need a kill shot to bring this fucker down.

When Brian came for him again Sam lifted his knife to catch the sideways arc of the machete and countered Brian's weight to flip him over onto the ground. He landed with a surprised 'oof' and Sam was able to wrench the machete from his iron grip and throw out of reach. Sam brought his knife down aiming for Brian's throat.

Brian caught his arm with one hand, lifting his gun hand and pooping off a shot at close range. It sliced past Sam's wrist making him drop his knife. Sam fell back in the snow holding his bleeding hand with his gun hand.

"Sam!" Sam heard Dean yell.

"Dean." Jack said. Dean looked down at and then at Sam, who'd just been shot.

"I'll be fine." Jack said with resolve.

"Here." Dean said lowering her softly to the ground . He shucked his jacket and wrapped it around her for extra warmth and gave her his gun.

"You need it." Jack said trying to give it back to him desperately watching Sam and Brian grappling in the snow, each time one aimed at the other a punch would be thrown or an arm caught buying precious seconds for either opponent.

"Sam's got two more. And I'll improvise." Dean said and turned to run to his brother before Jack could protest anymore. Sprinting the short distance, Dean grabbed up a damp piece of fallen wood from the ground. He slammed it hard one handed into Brian's head just as he was about to train the gun on Sam again. That was for the hit Dean took to his head earlier.

"Payback you little bitch." Dean said as Brian rolled with the hit to the ground. Dean snatched up Jack's fallen gun.

"You okay little brother?" He asked Sam.

"Yeah." Sam said getting to his feet. Dean threw him his bandana to wrap around his wrist. He dusted snow off his ass and tossed an extra gun to Dean.

Jack silently fumed, hating herself for being too damn weak and injured to help. She hated being stuck on sidelines watching her boys fight without her. She looked at her aching, bloody feet and back at the fight. Sam and Dean stood a scant five feet apart from each other and about fifteen from Brian who had rolled back to his feet. A triangle with Jack to the side evenly distanced from both sides. A chill racing up her spine gave her an idea. If she couldn't feel maybe she could help some. She shoved her feet deep in the snow, fighting past the blinding pain to get to the blessed numbness underneath. When she tried to stand her legs collapsed under her in exhaustion and pain ripped through her ribs making her cough up a mouthful of blood.

Brian's head snapped in Jack's direction. Watching from a distance as her blood melded with the icy forest floor, turning white to red. His eyes darkened and a preternatural growl rumbled low in his throat. All he'd have to do is walk a few feet. But her two guard dogs were watching him watching her as he took a step in that direction.

"Move an inch and I swear to God I will do to you every fucking thing you've done to her." Dean said his voice thick with menace.

"I think we should do that anyway." Sam suggested with his gun pointed at Brian. Brian looked taller, stronger than the first time Sam saw him. His form was bent and too long, stretching to accommodate the change.

"You know you're not leaving this forest, right?" Sam asked glancing at Jack who looked up at him with blood on her bottom lip and pain in her eyes.

"Funny I was going to say that to you." Brian said and before Sam's eyes could track him he darted in the space between Sam and Dean till he was standing in between them.

The brothers turned their guns on him and in the process on each other. Brian growled in satisfaction and went for Dean's throat knowing Sam wouldn't fire on him and risk hurting Dean.

A shot rang out and Brian was thrown to the ground clutching his shoulder. His eyes went blood red, rage fueling him to jump up and look roar at his shooter.

Jack held the gun in a shaky hand, her vision was clouding again but she kept her finger on the trigger. Brian looked at her and his body twisted and convulsed, changing with the stages of the incomplete ritual. He ran stop motion towards her with a now clawed hand raised to rip her to pieces. She tried to hold on but another round of wracking coughs started and she dropped the gun. She was defenseless.

Dean and Sam had just enough time to register that the shot fired wasn't for them and then they were running after Brian, who was barreling towards Jack at an alarming speed. Sam tripped on his bad leg and went down hard, doubling his pain by catching himself on his injured hand. Sam bit down, willing the pain away so he could get the hell off the ground.

Dean threw himself at the things torso trying to bring him to the ground. His claws came around and dug deep into Dean's back, tearing through the layers ripping into his skin. Dean screamed in pain but held on. Brian drew his claws upward tearing through muscle and ripped them out painfully to drag himself across the ground towards Jack.

Sam stumbled to his feet and grabbed one of the guns tucked into his pants to replace the one he dropped in his fall. He forced his legs to move trying to get close. Everything felt too slow, too fast, too everything. His legs felt like they weighed a ton slowing him down, while Brian, with Dean pulling still trying to hold him back inched closer to Jack. Her eyes opened to look dazedly at the hand that was now above her head.

No fear registered in those eyes, just tiredness and something Sam couldn't fathom. Dean was screaming something that Sam couldn't hear.

"I'll kill you, you son of bitch!" Dean screamed. His back was clawed to bits and the monster was still going strong. He had a horrified moment when he saw that hand come down on Jack, Brian snarling and foaming at the mouth half animal, half man. Dean forced himself to look. He didn't want to ever forget this unforgivable failure.

* * *

"You can't have her." The whispered hiss cut through everything and Sam pressed the gun barrel to Brian's head.

Sam fired the automatic at point blank range and the man's head exploded. Bits of skull, brain and blood splattering over all three of them.

A moment of silence stretched. What remained of Brian's face registered shock. Jack looked up at Sam , at the gun and at Dean w ho was still holding onto the corpse. He looked down and quickly pulled back from the headless form, pushing it off Jack too. He kicked it to the side and crawled forward to pull Jack to him. Sam stood frozen in the same position, his eyes glassy and dark.

"Sam." Dean said starting to get scared at Sam's behavior. Sam's eyes flicked to Dean and then to Jack. She sniffled, shaking with shock and cold.

Sam nodded at them and swallowed. He walked to the body and emptied his clip in the dead body. He couldn't feel pain anymore and Sam was pissed it hadn't lasted longer for the bastard. Dean got up, wincing at the deep slashes in his back but he still carried Jack to where Sam was. His ears were ringing from the gunshot.

"Lets go, man." Dean said, nudging Sam. Sam nodded and limped behind Dean to the main trail so they could find their way back to the car.

"I'm gonna get the guns and take care of the body. Stay here with Jack." Dean said after placing Jack safely in the backseat of the Impala.

"I don't want you going in there alone." Sam said catching Dean's arm. He looked so young and scared to Dean in that moment.

"He's dead, Sam, you popped him yourself." Dean said putting his hand on Sam's shoulder, squeezing it slightly.

"I-I know." Sam said. He let go of Dean's arm.

Dean dug into his pocket and took out Jack's choker. He pressed into Sam's hand for safe keeping and opened the trunk. He dug out the supplies he'd need; gas can, salt, matches.

"Half and hour tops." Dean said.

Sam watched his brother go. He forced the anxiety back that was threatening to overwhelm. He got it. Fuck, he got it now. When he was taken by the Benders Dean had looked terrified and monumentally relieved when he found Sam. Sam knew the fear of losing people, but these past two hunts were just too close. He'd almost lost Dean in Tucson and Jack here. Sam felt burned out, afraid that if he took his eyes off Jack or Dean for more than a few minutes they'd disappear. He opened the door to the backseat and sat down carefully next to Jack.

"Sam?" She said in a small voice. He turned his head to her, he thought she was asleep again. Sam looked at the necklace in his hand. He'd give it to her later, when they were better.

"Yeah, Jackie?" He asked hoarsely.

"Thank you." Jack said using what strength she had left to move herself to lean her head on Sam's shoulder. "For coming for me."

"Of course we came for you." Sam scoffed. He pulled a bit of gore from her hair.

As promised Dean came back in half an hour. He put his things away, slid into the front seat. He glanced at Sam in the mirror, eyes half lidded and buzzing with tension.

"How's our girl?" Dean asked. Jack opened her good eye and lifted her hand to give him a thumbs up.

"She'll be alright." Sam said.

"I know." Dean said starting the engine.

* * *

The drive two towns over to the hospital was a haze. Dean barely registered anything beyond the two people in the backseat. Dean carried Jack into the emergency room with Sam limping along beside him. Every head in the hospital waiting room turned to gape at t hem as they limped, lurched and pulled themselves through the entrance.

"Hi, how's your night goin?" Dean asked the nurse at registration. Jack giggled that turned into a cough. The nurse's mouth fell open at the sight of them.

"You'll catch flies like that." Sam croaked. Dean slapped down three phony insurance cards that all held the same last name. The cards were about the only thing of theirs not covered in blood and gore.

The nurse closed her mouth and called for a stretcher, but the boys refused to let Jack onto it alone so they compromised by having Sam ride on it with her, since his leg was injured and Dean walked along side it past the triage to where the curtained off E.R. beds were.

"Just stitch me up doc, I'll be fine." Dean grumbled when the doctor made a strangled noise at the sight of his back. He wasn't fine, he was swaying on his feet from blood loss and not like the twelve+ feet in either direction between his bed, Sam's and Jack's. The three insisted on keeping the curtains open between their 'rooms', not wanting to lose sight of one another.

"We need to keep her overnight." Jack's doctor said when they cut her out of her jeans to get to all her injuries. Jack shot a look at Dean and shook her head as much as she could manage.

He tried to start forward and reassure her that him and Sam would be staying overnight there too but his doctor stopped him.

"You'll pull the stitches out if you move Mr. McGee." The doctor said.

"Yeah Bobby, stay still." Sam said from his bed where they were cleaning and dressing his leg wound. He flashed a grin at Dean.

Jack snickered from her bed. Her insurance card read 'Janis McGee', since the song only had two names, Sam's said John and he was thankful for that. Dean coughed to cover his smile and sat back on his bed. They'd be okay.

**TBC……**

**AN: As you may know I've been terribly blocked for the past two or three days, which is like dog years for me. Needless to say it wasn't fun. But today I could write again. Yippee! Now aside from that some things about this chapter. This chapter went through many, many changes in my head as the story went. At first I had Jack firing the kill shot, a very 'get your hands off my boys.' Moment. Then it was Dean, because well….its Dean and that's what he does. **

**Then when I imagined Sam firing the kill shot it all clicked. Of course Sam would be the one to pull the trigger :facepalm: Duh! Unlike Jack and Dean, who communicate a lot through physicality and actions, Sam is more verbal (not that he's good at it but you know, he tries). But in moments like taking him to the healer in 'Faith' or in 'Scarecrow' when he stole a car to get to Dean, he's saying 'I care about you' in a way that Dean would understand better than words. That's kinda what I wanted to show in this chapter. I hope that makes sense.**

**Okay I promise I'm done rambling. Epilogue Next darlins, thank you for reading this, honestly it was the toughest for me to write and the story I'm most proud of.**

**AN2: I'm reposting this chap with this note because its been brought to my attention that the first time Jack dozes it can be misconstrued. Its a memory of her trick turning days, not her time in captivity.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. **

**EPILOGUE**

Eighty stitches for Dean's back, a personal best he bragged. Thirty for Jack's many cuts and treatment for a broken rib and a broken wrist and malnourishment. She couldn't walk till her wounds healed properly, but the doctors were sure the cuts wouldn't scar. Internal stitches for Sam. His calf muscle was sliced clean through and the added activity after cutting it put him off his feet for at least a couple of weeks, by Sam's estimation, the doc thought it was more like a month, but what the hell do they know. His hand had to have a surgical pin put in, the bullet taking a chip of bone when it hit.

Against doctors' orders they signed themselves out the following night.

At the motel in Vinita Sam and Dean packed their things quietly while Jack waited in the car. Every ten minutes like clockwork Sam or Dean would drop whatever they were doing and rush outside to make sure she was still sleeping of the painkillers in the backseat.

"Is this how it felt after the Benders thing?" Sam asked after another panic fueled check.

"Yep." Dean answered. That memory burned like an open wound.

"Sam." Dean looked up from zipping his pack up.

"Hmmm?" Sam looked up at him.

"You did good back there, saved all our asses." Dean said, nodding to his brother.

"What? No, I had a plan?" Sam asked with a small smile, waiting for the punch line.

"Nope, no plan. I just wanted to keep you guys safe. But you kept us safe this time." Dean said running his hand through his hair.

"Th-thanks." Sam stuttered. He cleared his throat, slung his bag over his shoulder. "You finish Jack's room.?"

"Yeah." Dean said.

Back in the car Sam took Jack's newly cleaned choker from his pocket and fastened it around her neck careful not to wake her. He swore he saw her smile but it might have been his imagination.

* * *

They drove till they hit Kansas and stopped at the first motel they found. Jack was wide awake but refused to be carried, instead using one of her crutches to walk. Sam used the other to support his bad leg, grumbling about it being too small for him.

They staggered inside, exhausted, Sam collapsing on the first bed and Jack on the second. Dean followed looking them over seeing if they seemed okay. They looked tired and not just from the last few days but from hunting for months straight without a single break Sam had lost weight Dean saw, mentally chastising himself for not paying enough attention to it sooner. There were deep circles under his eyes from not sleeping enough. Sam was dozing already, catching himself every time his head fell and jerking awake, darting worried glances at Jack as though expecting her to be gone whenever he opened his eyes. Dean felt the same way.

Jack was already pale, but her pallor beneath the bruises, was ashen and exhausted. She looked raw and exposed. She curled her hand around a gun she hadn't let go of since they left and followed the boys' miniscule movements. At the hospital she refused to sleep more than a half hour or so at a time and though it went unspoken, only if Sam and Dean both were near.

Dean still wanted names and addresses, he wanted to kill every one of the bastards slowly and painfully. But the important thing now was putting the girl back together again.

Dean scrubbed his hand over his face, headed towards the bathroom. Once there he caught a look at his own reflection. It shocked him. His eyes were dull and tired, he looked as haggard as Sam and Jack, like he hadn't slept in days. He rolled his eyes at himself, you haven't slept in days genius, he told himself. Dean looked at the injured face in the mirror, out the bathroom door at the ragged hunters on the beds and came to a decision. Dean used the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face and walked back into the bedroom with new resolve. He even felt his smile come back the more he thought about it.

Dean rifled through his bag, took out the bag of meds they were each supposed to take for pain and to prevent infection the next few days and tossed it on the dresser with a loud clatter that startled Jack and Sam awake. They looked at him with twin confused frowns as he grinned at them and took out his cell phone. Sam sat up frowning deeper.

"Dean, can't we rest a day or two before heading out-" Sam was cut off by Dean's upraised hand. He fell back in the bed assuming Dean was checking his messages for a new job.

"Hello this Dean Winchester, if this is an emergency call my father John Winchester." Dean recorded the new outgoing voicemail message leaving his father's number. Sam and Jack looked even more confused now.

"Why did you do that?" Jack asked slowly.

"We're taking a vacation." Dean said closing his phone. He turned his back to them taking the prescription pill bottles out of the bag.

"Lay the salt lines while I do this Sam." Dean said. He turned around when he got no response.

Sam and Jack were carrying on a silent conversation behind him. 'Is he serious?' Sam mouthed to Jack. 'I don't know' She mouthed back. She darted her eyes to Dean and back to Sam, raising her eyebrows in question. Sam shook his head and bit his lip. Dean tried very hard not to roll his eyes at them.

"Vacation Dean?" Sam asked with a look of disbelief and a hint of hope.

"Did I stutter Sam?" Dean asked. "We're going on vacation as soon as we can move without the use of painkillers."

"Now shut up and take your meds." Dean said tapping out each of their respective dosages into his hands and handing them off, followed by a bottle of water each.

"Take yours too." Jack insisted downing her pills. She watched Dean down his medication. 'Happy' his look said. She nodded, smiled and winced because it hurt to do that so soon. He picked up the remote control and flicked on the t.v.

"So um…what do normal people do on vacation?" Jack asked after a moment.

"Beats me." Dean said flopping sideways across the foot of Jack's bed. "What do people do on vacation, Sam?"

"I don't know either." Sam said shrugging. He wondered if that was weird, none of them knowing how to take a proper vacation.

"Guess we'll wing it." Dean said.

"Could always convince someone at Disneyland that its haunted and we need to get in free to check things out." Jack suggested.

"Can't. Dean scared of mice." Sam teased.

"Dude, it was a rat." Dean said. He blanched. "And I wasn't afraid."

"We'll figure out something." Jack said nudging Dean with her toe.

The boys nodded and they pretended to watch t.v. before Dean told Sam to carry his lazy ass over to the door and lay the lines down. When it was safe and just the three of them again they fell asleep.

**THE END**

**AN" Obligatory Author's Note here. Next story had our favorite Trio going on vacation but being them, it won't go as planned, but I gotta give them some chance to heal right? For some reason I feel compelled to write down the songs that pushed this story along, cause really I'm useless without music.**

**CCR- Bad Moon Rising**

**Three Doors Down- Love Me I'm Gone**

**Nickelback- Someday**

**Silent Hill 4- Room of Angel**

**Silent Hill 4- Tender Sugar**

**Nickelback- Too Bad**

**Chris Isaak- Wicked Game**

**Breaking Benjamin- Diary of Jane**

**Evanescence- Whisper**

**Eminem- When I'm Gone**

**Jem- Missin You**

**Korn- Alone I Break**

**Korn- Coming Undone**

**Muse -Hysteria**

**Three Days Grace- Animal I Have Become(strangely this was more an inspiration for Jack than the bad guy)**

**Nonpoint- Alive and Kicking**

**Nickelback- Savin Me**


End file.
